PALERMO, Sicily, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Rescue teams in

Sicily resumed a search for six missing people, including

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a

luxury yacht was struck by a violent storm and sank on Monday,

killing one on board.

The British-flagged "Bayesian," a 56-metre-long (184-ft)

sailboat was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off the

port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather.

Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International

and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who

represented Lynch in a U.S. trial, were among the missing.

The wives of both men were also unaccounted for, said

Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

"The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the

vessel," he told Reuters.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have

opened an investigation into the incident.

Specialist divers had reached the ship on Monday at a depth

of some 50 metres, but access was limited due to objects in the

way, the fire brigade said.

Fifteen people had escaped before the boat went down,

including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and

a one-year-old girl.

On Monday, rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht's

onboard chef, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent

days, after weeks of scorching heat lifted the temperature of

the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of

extreme weather conditions, experts said.

"The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30

degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more

than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that

contributes to these storms," said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

"We can't say that this is all due to global warming but

we can say that it has an amplifying effect," he told Reuters.

The British government's Marine Accident Investigation

Branch said four inspectors had been sent to Sicily to conduct a

"preliminary assessment."

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to

be named said an early focus of the investigation would be

whether the yacht's crew had had time to close access hatches

into the vessel before the storm struck.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer and Giulia Segreti

Editing by Bernadette Baum)