The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.

Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for, interior ministry official Massimo Mariani told Reuters after being briefed by the emergency services.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-meter-long superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in minutes after bad weather struck early Monday.