Five people are feared dead and 59 people were rescued from a disabled boat carrying suspected asylum-seekers in the Indian Ocean, Australia's government said on Sunday.
Passengers told rescuers five people were missing, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said. Lifejackets and tyre tubes had been seen in the area where they left the boat, before a Russian merchant vessel towed it to safety.
"If reports about five missing passengers are correct, this is a tragic and unnecessary loss of life, and highlights that these types of voyages are extremely dangerous," O'Connor said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, loss of life at sea can occur when people are persuaded to embark on these poorly maintained vessels over such a great distance."
Survivors of the vessel were rescued on Saturday by the Russian ship MV Postojna, and their boat had been towed to the Cocos Islands, an Australian possession in the Indian Ocean, where they arrived on Sunday.
O'Connor said the passengers would be transferred to nearby Christmas Island, where Australia has a processing centre for asylum seekers. Statements would be taken from them in the coming days, he said.
The search for survivors had been halted on medical advice that survival was now unlikely.
Australia has seen an upsurge in arrivals of boatpeople in recent months, particularly from war-ravaged Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Canberra has temporarily suspended processing of asylum claims from the two countries.
It is a hot political issue in Australia, where an election is due later this year. The conservative opposition has accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Labor government of fuelling a surge in arrivals through a soft policy.
Australia has for several years been trying to stop the people-smugglers who organise the voyages, mainly from Indonesia, often demanding hefty sums from each passenger in payment.
