TRIPOLI ? (UPDATE) A major international rescue operation was launched on Thursday after a boat with 83 crew and passengers aboard capsized in a storm off the northern coast of Lebanon, officials said.
The Panamanian-flagged ship "Danny F II," transporting livestock from Uruguay to the Syrian port of Tartous, overturned some 11 nautical miles off the Lebanese port of Tripoli at around 7:30 pm (1730 GMT), the officials said.
Lebanese navy rescue boats, including a medical team, rushed to the scene of the disaster along with three vessels from the United Nations force stationed off Lebanon (UNIFIL) and a British Royal Air Force helicopter from Cyprus.
Syrian ships were also involved in the rescue effort, officials said.
"Three maritime task force ships, one Italian and two German, were dispatched about 10 nautical miles off the coast of Tripoli after the Lebanese navy received a distress call from a Panamanian-flagged ship," UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP.
"Preliminary information indicates the ship sank with 83 people aboard."
A port official in Tripoli told AFP that 24 crew members had been rescued some two hours after the accident, four of them by a Syrian boat.
Tenenti said UNIFIL had recovered six people.
A Lebanese rescue official said one of those saved was from the Philippines and another was a Pakistani. "They were very scared and cold when we pulled them out of the water," he told AFP.
Ambulances were seen rushing out of Tripoli's port area to nearby hospitals.
A Lebanese military spokesman said the crew apparently had time to put on their life jackets before the boat capsized.
The ship's operator, Agencia Schandy, told AFP in Montevideo that the Danny F II had a crew of 76 and six passengers -- four Uruguayans, one Brazilian and an Australian.
The ship left Montevideo on November 23 with 10,224 sheep and 17,932 cattle.
All of the animals were presumed lost after the ship capsized and sank, the Tripoli port official said.
Rescuers said they planned to work through the night.
"If the sea remains calm we hope to find more survivors," one official said. "But if the storm kicks up again then they have little chance of surviving for more than an hour in the water."
A British military spokesman in Cyprus said one rescue helicopter had been scrambled from RAF Akrotiri some 240 kilometers (150 miles) almost due west of Tripoli to aid the rescue effort.
"The helicopter is not equipped to winch at night but we provide a searchlight facility to lead the boats where there are life rafts," Stuart Bardsley told AFP.
The Danny F II had been bound for Tartous, north of Tripoli, before being forced to change course because of the bad weather. It was trying to reach the Lebanese capital Beirut when it capsized.
Thursday's accident came as severe thunderstorms lashed Lebanon, causing heavy flooding in some parts of the country and widespread damage.
A Togolese-flagged ship also sank off the southern coast of Lebanon last week. Several crew members were rescued by Israel but a number are still missing.
UNIFIL, which has some 13,000 troops from various countries stationed in southern Lebanon, also took part in that rescue.
The UNIFIL force, established in 1978 to monitor the Lebanon-Israel border, was considerably beefed up in the wake of the 2006 war between the militant Shiite group Hezbollah and Israel.
