Updated at 6:55 p.m. ET:

AHMETBEYLI, Turkey - At least 61 migrants including Palestinians and Syrians, more than half of them children, died after their overcrowded boat sank just off Turkey's western Aegean coast on Thursday, officials said.

Tahsin Kurtbeyoglu, governor of the coastal district of Menderes in Izmir province, told Reuters an initial investigation showed the small vessel sank around dawn due to overcrowding.

Its destination was unclear but the small Turkish town of Ahmetbeyli from where it set out is only a few kilometers from the Greek island of Samos. Greece is a common entry point for migrants trying to get into the European Union.

 

"The total death toll is 61, including 12 men, 18 women, 28 children and three babies," the governor's office in Izmir said in a statement.

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Turkish media said the reason the death toll was so high was because the women and children were in a locked compartment in the lower section of the vessel, although there was no official confirmation of this. 

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 Kurtbeyoglu said 46 people had so far been rescued alive, including the ship's Turkish captain and assistant, who had been placed under arrest. He said there were no bodies left on the boat and he did not expect the death toll to rise any further.

The Izmir governor's office said the survivors were Palestinian and Syrian nationals and that they had been taken to Ahmetbeyli for health checks. Two people were admitted to hospital.

Turkish media said there were also Iraqis on the boat, although that could not be confirmed.

Turkey's position as a bridge from Asia to Europe, as well as its wealth compared with neighboring states, has long made it both a destination and a transit point for migrants from the Middle East and as far afield as Africa and South Asia.

Its location also means it is a major destination for human trafficking, according to the International Organization for Migration, which helps governments to combat illegal migration.  

Syrians among the migrants
A record 1,500 migrants, mostly from Africa, died trying to reach European shores last year with uprisings in Tunisia and Libya adding to the numbers, according to the United Nations.

Chaos in Syria has prompted more to flee.

More than 200,000 Syrians have crossed into Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and especially Turkey since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad erupted more than 17 months ago.

From there, a determined and usually richer few press on to European Union borders, mainly into Greece, with most hoping for asylum further north.

Turkey is sheltering about 80,000 Syrian refugees near its southeastern border with Syria. 

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 Multeci-Der, a Turkish refugee rights group based in Izmir, said Syrians made up a growing portion of illegal migrants being caught in recent weeks in Greece after fleeing from Turkey.

"Asylum procedures must be fair, work quickly and be accessible to people. As long as this is not achieved, those people seeking asylum have no other choice than to be at the mercy of people smugglers," it said in a statement.

Television footage showed small boats and diving teams searching for survivors just off Ahmetbeyli. The boat sank less than 110 yards from the shore after leaving at around 5:30 a.m., officials said.

The Greek island of Samos is clearly visible from Ahmetbeyli, which lies in a popular coastal region frequented by foreign and Turkish tourists.

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About 130,000 immigrants cross Greece's sea and land borders every year, the vast majority via Turkey.

Greece received more than 1,000 migrants by sea last year, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Another 55,000 crossed the land border between Greece and Turkey at Evros, according to Greek government figures.

Greece opened a purpose-built detention center for illegal migrants in April, the first of about 50 camps that Greek officials have said will be completed by mid-2013.

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ROME -- Venice appears to have more nicknames than street names. It’s known as the "Queen of the Adriatic," the "City of Water," "City of Masks," "City of Bridges," "The Floating City," and "City of Canals."

But is Venice destined to become "The Divers' Paradise" much faster than we thought? New research by U.S. scientists suggests it is sinking more than five times faster than experts in Venice believe.

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Saying that the city is sinking is just about as obvious as saying that the wind will always blow in Chicago. It’s just a thing of nature. And there’s nothing anybody can do to stop it.  

While Venetians and tourists know that Venice's appeal is due to its undeniable beauty, with its Gothic and Byzantine palazzos appearing to float on the canals and lagoon, much of the city's allure comes from the fact that it appears to be disappearing.

So you don’t need a scientist to tell you that Venice is sinking. In fact, sometimes they tell you otherwise. Back in the 1980s Venetians rejoiced at the news that the city had finally stabilized.  But, to use an Italian sailor’s jargon, that theory “loses water from all sides.”

It’s quite obvious to the naked eye (or rather, to the naked ankle when it floods) that parts of Venice are flooding more and more often. To tourists, walking in a flooded St. Mark’s Square might be a unique photo opportunity, but to Venetians it’s a sign of things to come. 

History, architecture, art and much more - great Italian destinations!

So Venice is sinking. But the question remains -- how long will it take before it turns from floating jewel to a playground for divers?

The answer comes from a new research by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, expected to be published on Wednesday: Venice is still sinking, and sinking at a rate of up to two millimeters per year (0.08 inches).  

City heading out to sea
There’s more. Not only is the city being reclaimed by the waters that made it famous, it now looks like it’s actually heading out to sea, as if the glorious capital of the former Maritime Venetian Republic is tired of being a tourist attraction and wants to die in the Adriatic.

According to measurements taken over 10 years, Venice is also tilting a bit, about a millimeter or two eastward per year. While this doesn’t mean that you should buy a ticket right away in order to see Venice before it disappears, it raises concern that not enough is being done to save it.   

A complex system of moving dams around Venice that took decades and millions of dollars to build is nearing completion. The new research could well call into question whether these major works will actually be enough to save the “Floating City.”

One of the biggest experts on the state of Venice, Luigi Tosi, of Italy's National Research Center, pointed out that Venice's "sinking" was actually a combination of land subsidence and sea level rise.

He said the Scripps researchers' results "tell us nothing new." "We have published a paper back in 1992 that arrived to the same conclusions," he said.

But experts at Consorzio Venezia Nuova, the group in charge of safeguarding Venice and the lagoon, told NBC News they had a lot of questions about the Scripps report, saying they thought the city was sinking much more slowly.

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“I learned about the new research from journalists like yourself,” said an official who asked not to be named. “We have records of the subsiding of Venice for hundreds of years, and yet they haven’t called us."

But one thing is clear to the official -- 10 years of measurements might sound a lot to most people, but on Venice’s standards it’s the blink of an eye.

"We have calculated that the city has been sinking three to four centimeters (about 1.5 inches) per century," the official said.

That's not to say the people at Consorzio Venezia Nuova aren't paying attention, however.

"Now they say two millimeters per year…that means Venice would sink 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) every 100 years. That’s more than five times more than we calculated. So I’ll believe it when I see it," he said. 

It’s unclear whether the Scripps Institute team will contact the Consorzio before the research is published on Wednesday.  But one way or another their difference will have to be reconciled … and it will be, once again, just water under the bridge.

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