Sailors tell of agony in Christmas Island rescue

A NAVY lieutenant has described how he cut a line to save a child attached to a drowned woman when an asylum seeker boat smashed into rocks on Christmas Island.
Sub-Lieutenant Jeremy Evain told the inquest in Perth yesterday he was on one of two boats sent from the patrol vessel HMAS Pirie to rescue people after their craft smashed against the rocks off Christmas Island's Rocky Point on December 15 last year.
The sailors battled waves, wind and rain to reach the cliff where the asylum seekers' craft smashed apart.

West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope is conducting the inquest on the deaths of 30 people from Iraq and Iran, and the likely deaths of 20 more people.
Sub-Lieutenant Evain said that as his boat rounded the point he saw the vessel being smashed on the rocks as people clung to it and others floated in the water, screaming for help.
''I observed the sea was throwing debris and people into the cliff face,'' the 22-year-old officer said.
The risk of debris blocking the intakes of the boat's engines meant they had to stand off and throw lines with attached lifebelts to people in the water, then pull them to the boats.
He saw dead bodies in the water, including a middle-aged woman just below the surface who was attached by a line to a child in a lifejacket floating on the surface. To rescue the child, he had to cut the line, he said.
Sub-Lieutenant Evain said he had to ignore cries for help from some people to concentrate on saving those he could.
The coxswain of the second rescue boat, Leading Seaman Jonathan West, said there was a strong smell of diesel and fuel-soaked survivors proved difficult to grasp and pull aboard.