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The Spirit of 1770, which caught fire in waters off the Queensland coast. Photo: Twitter

Chinese tourists rescued from boat that caught fire and sank off Great Barrier Reef island

Many were elderly Chinese who couldn’t swim

More than 40 people have escaped a tourist boat that became engulfed in flames and began sinking on the Great Barrier Reef off the central Queensland coast.

The 23-metre catamaran, Spirit of 1770, was 10 nautical miles from Lady Musgrave Island, east of Gladstone, when its 42 passengers were forced to flee in life rafts after a fire in the engine room spread.

Many of the tourists were elderly Chinese, with others from Canada, New Zealand and Britain. Some reportedly couldn’t swim.

Ambulance staff tend to more than 40 tourists, many of them Chinese, who were recovering in the town of 1770 after jumping into life rafts when the catamaran they were on caught fire in Australia. Photo: AFP

English traveller Gemma Sargent said she was woken by people shouting about the fire.

“All of a sudden the captain goes ‘Get off the boat!’ and I’m looking at him thinking ‘How?’,” she told Seven News.

“Everyone literally got shoved off whether you could swim or not.”

They drifted for several hours before three rescue boats arrived and ferried them ashore, where pictures showed them huddled under blankets as they were treated by paramedics.

All of them were ferried back to shore at Gladstone by a volunteer marine rescue, where they were found to have no injuries, a Queensland ambulance spokeswoman said.

A police statement said 19 of those rescued were taken to hospitals in Bundaberg and Gladstone for treatment of non-life threatening injuries after the vessel sank late Wednesday.

The catamaran was returning to the town of 1770 after a day trip to Lady Musgrave Island when it caught fire and was abandoned 30 minutes later, police said.

The town of 1770 was named after the year that British explorer James Cook and the crew of HM Endeavour landed on that stretch of the coast.

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