A fish­ing boat car­ry­ing mi­grants cap­sized and sank off the coast of Greece on Wednes­day, au­thor­i­ties said, leav­ing at least 78 peo­ple dead and many dozens feared miss­ing in one of the worst dis­as­ters of its kind this year.

Coast guard, navy and mer­chant ves­sels fanned out for a vast search-and-res­cue op­er­a­tion that al­so in­clud­ed a plane and a he­li­copter.

Au­thor­i­ties said 104 peo­ple have been res­cued so far af­ter the boat sank overnight in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters some 75 kilo­me­ters (45 miles) south­west of Greece’s south­ern Pelo­pon­nese penin­su­la. The spot is close to one of the deep­est ar­eas of the Mediter­ranean Sea.

It was un­clear how many pas­sen­gers might still be in the wa­ter or trapped in the sunken ves­sel, but some ini­tial re­ports sug­gest­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple may have been on board.

Four sur­vivors were hos­pi­tal­ized with symp­toms of hy­pother­mia. At the south­ern port of Kala­ma­ta, dozens of oth­ers were tak­en to shel­tered ar­eas set up by the am­bu­lance ser­vices and the Unit­ed Na­tions Refugee Agency to re­ceive dry clothes and med­ical at­ten­tion.

The Greek coast guard said 78 bod­ies have been re­cov­ered so far.

The Italy-bound boat is be­lieved to have sailed from the To­bruk area in east­ern Libya. That coun­try plunged in­to chaos fol­low­ing a NA­TO-backed up­ris­ing that top­pled and killed long­time au­to­crat Moam­mar Gad­hafi in 2011. Hu­man traf­fick­ers have ben­e­fit­ed from the en­su­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty, and made Libya one of the main de­par­ture points for peo­ple at­tempt­ing to reach Eu­rope on smug­gler’s boats.

The Ital­ian coast guard first alert­ed Greek au­thor­i­ties and the Eu­ro­pean Union bor­der pro­tec­tion agency, Fron­tex, about the ap­proach­ing ves­sel on Tues­day.

The Unit­ed Na­tions mi­gra­tion agency, IOM, said ini­tial re­ports sug­gest­ed up to 400 peo­ple were on board. A net­work of ac­tivists said it re­ceived a dis­tress call from a boat in the same area whose pas­sen­gers said 750 peo­ple were on board — but it was not clear if that was the ves­sel that sank.

Af­ter that first alert, Fron­tex air­craft and two mer­chant ships spot­ted the boat head­ing north at high speed, ac­cord­ing to the Greek coast guard. More air­craft and ships were sent to the area.

But re­peat­ed calls to the ves­sel of­fer­ing help were de­clined, the coast guard said in a state­ment.

“In the af­ter­noon a mer­chant ves­sel ap­proached the ship and pro­vid­ed it with food and sup­plies, while the (pas­sen­gers) re­fused any fur­ther as­sis­tance,” it said. A sec­ond mer­chant ship that ap­proached it lat­er of­fered fur­ther sup­plies and as­sis­tance, which were turned down, it added.

In the evening, a coast guard pa­trol boat reached the ves­sel “and con­firmed the pres­ence of a large num­ber of mi­grants on the deck,” the state­ment said. “But they re­fused any as­sis­tance and said they want­ed to con­tin­ue to Italy.”

The coast guard boat ac­com­pa­nied the mi­grant ves­sel, which, the state­ment said, cap­sized and sank ear­ly Wednes­day, prompt­ing a mas­sive res­cue op­er­a­tion by all the ships in the area.

Alarm Phone, a net­work of ac­tivists that pro­vides a hot­line for mi­grants in trou­ble, mean­while, said it was con­tact­ed by peo­ple on a boat in dis­tress on Tues­day af­ter­noon. That boat was in the same gen­er­al area as the one that sank, but it was not clear if it was the same ves­sel.

The or­ga­ni­za­tion no­ti­fied Greek au­thor­i­ties and Fron­tex. In one com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Alarm Phone, mi­grants re­port­ed the ves­sel was over­crowd­ed and that the cap­tain had aban­doned the ship on a small boat, ac­cord­ing to the group. They asked for food and wa­ter, which was pro­vid­ed by a mer­chant ship.

When they have larg­er boats, Mediter­ranean smug­glers are in­creas­ing­ly try­ing to stay in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters as they pass by Greece to try to avoid its coast guard pa­trols.

On Sun­day, 90 mi­grants on a U.S.-flagged yacht were res­cued in the area af­ter they made a dis­tress call.

Peo­ple res­cued as mi­grant boat sinks off Greek is­land

Au­thor­i­ties and lo­cal res­i­dents launched a large-scale res­cue op­er­a­tion af­ter a boat car­ry­ing mi­grants sank off the Greek is­land of Kythi­ra. (Oct. 6)

Six Greek coast guard ves­sels, a navy frigate, a mil­i­tary trans­port plane, an air force he­li­copter, sev­er­al pri­vate ves­sels and a drone from Fron­tex are cur­rent­ly tak­ing part in the search for the boat that sank Wednes­day.

Greek Pres­i­dent Ka­te­ri­na Sakel­laropoulou head­ed for the area where res­cued mi­grants are be­ing tend­ed to and planned cam­paign events by po­lit­i­cal par­ties ahead of June 25 na­tion­al elec­tions were called off.

Sep­a­rate­ly Wednes­day, a yacht with 81 mi­grants on board was towed to a port on the south coast of Greece’s is­land of Crete af­ter au­thor­i­ties re­ceived a dis­tress call.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Nicholas Pa­phi­tis in Athens, Greece, Sam Magdy in Cairo and Re­na­ta Brito in Barcelona, Spain, con­tributed.

Fol­low AP sto­ries on glob­al mi­gra­tion at https://ap­news.com/hub/mi­gra­tion

By DEREK GATOPOU­LOS

ATHENS, Greece (AP)