Rescuers will continue the search for further bodies until last light tonight before reviewing what action will need to be taken tomorrow. The boat smashed up against the rocks, shown on a video image from Channel 7. The bodies of the dead will be sent to Perth. Men, women and children were on board the stricken vessel as the tragedy unfolded. "Sadly some bodies have been retrieved," Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan said, adding "The boat has crashed into the rocks. Naval boats are involved in the rescue."

Julia Gillard has announced she will break her holiday and return to work this evening to personally oversee the disaster. "This has been a tragic event, and it will be some time before there is a full picture of what has happened," she said. "The Government's focus and absolute priority now is on rescue, recovery and treatment of those injured." Do you know more? Do you have pictures or video? Email us or direct message on Twitter @WAtoday Christmas Island residents have told of looking on helplessly as babies and children desperately clung to pieces of wreckage in the raging ocean near Flying Fish Cove. The navy is trying to rescue survivors, but witnesses say they are facing an uphill struggle against appalling weather conditions, with debris from the crash spreading over a one-kilometre area. Christmas Island councillor Kamar Ismail said the asylum seekers appeared to be mostly of Middle Eastern origin. A doctor who had been briefed by the Immigration Department confirmed most of the survivors were of Iraqi and Iranian nationality.

"It was horrific, mate. I saw a person dying in front of me and there was nothing we could do to save them," Mr Ismail said. It was horrific mate, I saw a person dying in front of me and there was nothing we could do to save them. "Babies, children maybe three or four years old, they were hanging on to bits of timber, they were screaming 'help, help, help', we were throwing life jackets out to them but many of them couldn't swim a few metres to reach them. "The waves just kept on coming and smashed everything. When the navy boat came in, we just hugged each other. Just to see kids like that, I don't know what to say." Locals had thrown their own lifejackets, as well as those supplied by customs and police, out to the stricken boat people.

"It's something we as a community, no matter what colour or race you are, once we see something like this we work together. It's our duty as a citizen to help people like that, and we did the best we could. "If we were to jump in [to the water] we would have died ourselves." Mr Ismail said he could not understand why the boat was on that side of the island, when two other boats were intercepted on the calmer opposite side yesterday. Smashed against 'razor-sharp' cliffs Witness Michael Foster told Sky News that survivors were being ferried to a customs boat in deeper waters as conditions were so bad that there was ''no chance to get on land ... unless they helicopter them [to shore]''.

''They may try to get them around the corner where it's calmer. ''The navy were doing their best to get anybody they could as close as they could to the rocks, but most people were caught up close to the rocks and getting thrown into the rocks, which wasn't very nice. Kids and women screaming and people yelling out. "Local people [were] trying to assist and throwing life lines out but the horrendous conditions of the ocean at the moment wasn't allowing anybody to get close," he told WAtoday.com.au. "And you didn't want to be anywhere closer to the cliff face because it's razor-sharp and the four-metre swells plus were throwing people around. It wasn't a very pretty sight." Mr Foster said four navy vessels were out at the accident site and officials were rescuing about three to four of the asylum seekers each time.

One remarkable tale of survival emerged: a man jumped from the boat on to the cliff face and struggled to safety as the boat struck the rock. "I heard one person had jumped up off the boat when it collided and managed to get up so he was pretty fortunate," Mr Foster said. "There weren't so many lucky people out there, I know that much." 'There was a lot of screaming' Christmas Island resident Mick Tassone was watching the tragedy unfold 200 metres away.

"I'd say they just hit the rocks and have broken up. They had no chance," he said. "Unless they pick them up very quick I don't think they have much chance of surviving, its very rough." He first saw the boat go past at 5am. "There was a lot of screaming, it was very rough out there. "There is debris out in front. The hull is just floating past me now. It is broken up into bits and pieces. I have seen a lot of things that could have been people. It is raining and hazy but I wouldn't doubt they could have been bodies. "I presume there are a lot of bodies in the water, probably all of them," he said. Several navy boats were still cruising around and attempting to make a rescue. "It is just about impossible to get a boat in a water off the island," he said. Another witness said the situation was "pretty ugly". "The locals are throwing life jackets and ropes over the cliffs, but there's bodies floating around out there," he said.

"The navy has arrived in [rescue boats] trying to pick up survivors but it's pretty tough. The waves are monstrous; they're seven or eight metres high." One man with cuts was rescued and was taken away in an ambulance, the witness said. "The boat's been destroyed. We can't get to them. The cliff face is around eight metres [high]." About 50 residents were trying to help. The crash site is overlooked by the Golden Bosun Tavern. Boat crashed in 'putrid' weather

Christmas Island was being battered by a 3.7-metre swell and 24-knot winds blowing directly onshore at 7am today, maritime weather site willyweather.com.au reported. Bureau of Meteorology severe weather regional manager Andrew Burton said the tempestuous conditions were expected to remain for several days, due to a monsoon in the area. There would be frequent showers and thunderstorms, seas of up to four metres, with swells about three metres. A business owner, who asked not to be named, said the boat was about five metres off the cliff in four-metre swell about 7am local time when he saw it. "I thought it was pretty obvious people were going to die," the man said.

"They were sitting out within metres off the cliff and they were all screaming, 'Help us.' [There were] waves pounding into it and a lot of backwash, really bad weather." The boat had crashed against the cliff by the time the man returned from dropping a family member at work. "I could see from the hill, about half an hour later, there were just sticks, just debris," he said. The business owner said there was no sign of official rescuers when he first noticed the boat, but it had appeared quickly. "Where it came in, it was very close to a point so it would have just drifted around a corner," he said. "It all would have happened very quickly, no one would have seen it coming for kilometres or anything, [it was] really sudden."

People were trying to drop life jackets down the cliff into the water and a navy patrol boat was launching smaller boats into the water. The man said the weather was "putrid". "It's almost bordering on cyclonic, we've got really big waves, probably four to five metres," he said. "It's raining, it's windy, it's horrible. "We knew a week ago that the bad weather was coming and it's been here three days or so." 'People hanging off the boat'

Ally McNabb, who works at Barracks Cafe on the island, said waves were as high as 15 metres when the boat crashed. She said her partner received a call about 6.30am and ran down to the rocks to help with the rescue. ''Everyone was standing on the rocks. They were getting as close as they could [to the boat] and throwing in life jackets. ''People were hanging off the side of the boat.'' She said witnesses told her that initially ''everyone was fine'' and the boat had been resting near the rocks for a while and had not touched them.

But then one big wave hit the boat and the passengers in it were all thrown on to the rocks, which are about five metres high, she said. People trying to help were ''traumatised'' to see bodies in the water, Ms McNabb said. Another witness on the island said that conditions were so rough would-be rescuers were unable to enter the water, with waves crashing over the jetty. Locals who would normally be out fishing in the area had been unable to get their boats into the water. "The water here is that bad at the moment, there is no way they could have got in safely," she said.

"The swell is huge." John MacDonald, who runs an engineering business on the island, said high cliffs and the big swell meant there was no possibility of people getting to shore. "There is very little hope of getting to shore in these conditions," he said. There was nothing many people could do but stand and watch. Official rescue under way

A federal police spokeswoman said the police were responding to a maritime incident involving a suspected illegal entry vessel on Christmas Island. The federal police and partner government agencies on Christmas Island were co-ordinating the immediate response to the incident and it was ongoing, she said. "The AFP's priority is the safety of all those involved in the incident," she said. A Customs and Border Protection statement said: "There is an ongoing situation which involves a rescue of people off Christmas Island. Our paramount priority is the safety of all involved. A further statement will be provided later in the day." But a spokeswoman from Customs and Border Protection refused to answer questions about whether the organisation knew a boat was in the area prior to the incident.

She would not respond to questions about whether the boat had been tracked in the lead-up to today's events, or if it was known to be in danger of hitting the cliffs. A media contact at the Department of Defence also refused to take questions on the sinking, instead referring all inquiries to Customs and Border Protection. WA Premier Colin Barnett said all the state's available assets had been put on standby to help with the rescue. The WA Coroner, who has jurisdiction in the area, has also been alerted. "WA Police has been in constant contact with the Australian Federal Police and all have all available State assets ready to assist," he said. "Medical disaster response groups and a disaster victims' identification team have all been put on standby.

"The Royal Flying Doctor Service has been deployed to the area and our hospitals are also on alert to receive injured patients and we will continue to offer the highest level of assistance in the coming days." Joeley Pettit-Scott of the Royal Flying Doctor Service said her organisation sent its Rio Tinto Life Flight jet to Christmas Island to pick up three patients. The Hawker 800XP2 aircraft carried two critical care teams - a doctor and a nurse per team - and left Perth about 1pm. Two patients have head injuries and one had abdominal injuries, she said. The injured are believed to be two men and a woman.

The aircraft has a ''full medical fit-out'' and can carry three critical care patients on stretchers. All the patients that the Flying Doctor Service is picking up will be stretchered, Ms Pettit-Scott said. The plane was expected to arrived at Christmas Island about ''late afternoon''. A WA police spokesman said detectives, forensic officers, and disaster victim identification officers will be flying to the island this evening at 10pm Perth-time. Michelle Foster of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre at the Royal Darwin Hospital said the facility has been "made aware of the incident and is awaiting advice". She was unable to say how many of the survivors might be brought to the centre and how severe their injuries would be.

'Government to blame' Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison described the tragedy as "our worst fears realised". Mr Morrison, a strident critic of the government's immigration policies, refused to comment on its handling of the situation, saying today was a day for "sadness, not policy discussion and analysis". "This is a terrible human tragedy," he said. "The lives of the men, women and children on these boats are as precious as our own and we mourn their loss." But Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition said the blame for the deaths lay with the Australian government.

''If the Australian government was willing to properly process asylum seekers in Indonesia and resettle successful refugees in Australia, then far fewer people would get on boats to travel to Australia," he said. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said: "It is clear that a terrible tragedy has occurred this morning off the coast of Christmas Island". "Today is a day for expressing sorrow for what has happened, and for providing support and compassion for everyone involved. Our thoughts are with all those involved in the rescue operation, who are doing all they can in very challenging circumstances." Another boat stopped A boat carrying eight suspected asylum seekers was boarded by Australian authorities at Christmas Island yesterday afternoon.

Australian Customs and Border Protection said officers from HMAS Pirie found the vessel north-west of Rocky Point with eight passengers and three crew members on board. They were taken to Christmas Island for security and health checks. The Immigration Department reported that, so far this year, 126 boats have arrived in Australia, with 2971 people housed at the detention centre on Christmas Island. Loading However, the opposition put the figures at 197 boats and 5400 people.

- Chalpat Sonti, Daile Pepper, Glenda Kwek, Georgina Robinson, Thomas Hunter, Kirsty Needham, Paul Tatnell and AAP

