MANAMA, 2 April 2006 — Bahraini Coast Guard and air force stepped up search efforts yesterday for two people missing from the cruise boat tragedy in which 57 people drowned, most of them Indians and Britons.

Of the 126 people aboard 67 were rescued after the boat, the Al-Dana, capsized Thursday night in fair weather less than half a mile off the coast of Bahrain on the western shore of the Arabian Gulf.

Col. Tariq Al-Hassan, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said yesterday that the national coast guard and air force were combing beaches and had deployed divers and helicopters in the search efforts.

The captain of the boat, an Indian national, remained in custody for questioning, Al-Hassan told reporters. He did not provide additional details. The two-story vessel began to list dangerously when it made a sharp turn. Some survivors said it was overcrowded, others claimed it was unstable.

The dead included 21 Indians and 15 Britons among a patchwork of construction industry executives from 16 countries who were celebrating progress on a pair of skyscrapers being built in Bahrain.

The only American aboard the vessel, a civilian woman working for the US Navy base in Bahrain, survived. South Africa-based construction firm Murray & Roberts Group said in a statement that “more than 50 senior employees from various companies working on the World Trade Center Project have been lost.” The dead included the project’s chairman, David Evans, 56, a Briton; and project director Will Nolan, 50, also British.

Meanwhile, tour operators in Bahrain said yesterday they had temporarily suspended sea trips after the tragedy.

“Trips to Hawar Islands will stop for a few days ... After such a disaster a sea trip will appear to many people as not a good idea,” Sujay Uchil Mhcima, Indian general manager of a Bahraini hotel and resort, said.

Some of the grieving families and survivors lashed out yesterday at the government and the company operating the tour. The wave of anger came as officials announced that the boat captain and his assistant were detained by authorities after discovering that they were not licensed operators.

Coast guard officials also said that the boat “appears” not to have been fully licensed to conduct such tours.

Criticism also came from local sailors who witnessed the early stages of the rescue as they questioned the wisdom behind transferring the victims to the coast guard station when closer locations could have been used.

— With input from agencies