Rome - A man has died and six people are missing after an unexpected violent storm struck a luxury yacht off the Sicilian capital of Palermo early Monday morning.

The Coast Guard said in a statement that the 56-meter sailing boat identified as the Bayan, registered in Britain, sank with 22 people on board just before sunrise.

The names of the dead and missing were not immediately disclosed, but a person familiar with the rescue operation confirmed that British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch was not among the missing. The Italian Coast Guard said the missing individuals hold British, American, and Canadian nationality.

A Coast Guard official in Palermo told Reuters, "The winds were very strong. The weather was expected to be bad but not to this extent."

Storms and heavy rains have swept across Italy in recent days, causing severe flooding and landslides in the north of the country after weeks of extreme heat.

Eight of those rescued were taken to local hospitals. Local media reported that all were in stable condition.

A nearby boat captain told Reuters that when the storm hit, he turned on the engine to control the ship and avoid colliding with the Bayan.

Carsten Bornhorst told reporters, "We managed to keep the ship in place, and after the storm passed, we noticed that the ship behind us had disappeared."

He added that the other boat "flipped over in the water and then sank."

He said his crew then found some survivors on a life raft - including three who were seriously injured, a child, and her mother - and brought them on board before they were picked up by the Coast Guard.

Lynch, 59, is known as Britain's Bill Gates and is one of the country's most prominent technology entrepreneurs.

He was acquitted in June by a jury in San Francisco of fraud charges related to the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.

At the time, he said he was "delighted" by his acquittal in the criminal trial where he denied any wrongdoing and blamed Hewlett-Packard for failing to integrate the two companies.

Rescue divers inspect the wreckage

The Coast Guard said divers were inspecting the wreckage at a depth of 49 meters.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to examine the error that occurred.

The Bayan was built by the Italian shipbuilding company Perini in 2008 and was last refurbished in 2020, managed by the yacht company Camper & Nicholsons.

It has won a series of awards for its design and can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites with a crew of 10, according to specialized yacht websites.

It was not immediately clear who owns the boat; however, the yacht's name will resonate with Lynch as his PhD thesis and the program that made his fortune were based on Bayesian theory.

The yacht was previously known as Salute, or health in Italian. Perini stated on its website that the 75-meter tall mast is the tallest aluminum mast in the world.

The ship departed from the port of Milazzo in Sicily on August 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with its navigation status marked as "at anchor," according to ship tracking application Vesselfinder.

A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said British officials are in contact with local authorities regarding the incident and are ready to provide consular support to affected Britons.