Fourteen people from the plane were taken to Kent General Hospital in Dover, none with life threatening injuries, officials said. Three others were taken to Christiana Care in Newark, said hospital spokeswoman Sharon Justice.

The C-5 was being flown by a reserve crew from the 512th Airlift Wing, said Capt. John Sheets of the Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

According to initial reports, the plane had just taken off and had some indications of a problem, said Col. Ellen Haddock, spokeswoman at the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff. It turned back to land and fell short of the runway, she said. It wasn't immediately clear if the plane was carrying cargo when it went down.

Emergency crews, some in hazardous materials suits, examined the wreckage Monday morning in light rain and under overcast skies.

Lisa Barrentine, who lives near the crash site, said she was in bed when she heard a rumbling.

"You could hear the windows shaking," Barrentine said. She said planes normally fly over her property, which lies at the southern end of the runway between the base and the Atlantic coast.

The C-5 Galaxy, made by Lockheed, is one of the largest aircraft in the world. It was first delivered to the military in 1970. Even with a payload of 263,200 pounds, the latest version can fly non-stop for 2,500 miles at jet speeds, according to Lockheed Martin Corp.

Dover is home to the 436th Airlift Wing, with more than 4,000 active-duty military and civilian employees, and operates the largest and busiest air freight terminal in the Defense Department. The base is also home to the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs, which processes bodies from the nation's wars.

The boat, the al-Dana, was carrying a mix of Bahrainis, other Gulf Arab nationals and westerners, who were celebrating the completion of a construction project.

Witnesses said the boat had been overcrowded with passengers and that it had "rocked badly and tilted over" after hitting a wave.

Khalil Mirza, a Bahraini survivor, said: "People were scared in the water. They were fighting with each other and screaming."

At daylight, only the upturned hull of the dhow was visible in the water, with empty orange lifejackets bobbing alongside. Bahrain TV showed pictures of rescue workers using pickaxes to try to break through the hull of the vessel. No one had been found in the upturned boat.

Scores of officials and relatives waited at the harbour watching the rescue operation, which saw bodies being brought to shore covered with white sheets. Hospital workers took the bodies to waiting ambulances.

Survivors, still wet and in shock, squatted on the floor of a hospital. Several wept uncontrollably as friends and relatives tried to calm them.

Steve Harrison, the acting UK ambassador in Bahrain, told BBC news a number of "walking wounded" British and other nationalities had been brought ashore. He described the mood in the embassy as "sombre".

A Foreign Office rapid deployment team is on its way to the island state to support embassy staff and to offer help to survivors and their relatives.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said he was "shocked" by the tragedy.

Abdullan al-Qubaisi, of the al-Dana company that owns the boat, told state television: "It has a capacity of 200, but it is allowed to carry only 100 passengers. They loaded the boat with more than its capacity. The captain refused to sail but they forced him to leave."

The coast guard commander, Youssef al-Katem, said 13 people were still missing. It was possible some people had tried to swim ashore, as the boat capsized less than a mile from the coast.

In addition to the Britons, the Bahrain interior ministry spokesman, Colonel Tarik al-Hassan, said earlier today, the dead included 17 Indian citizens, five from Pakistan, four from South Africa, three from the Philippines, two from Singapore and one from Germany. An Irish man is also among those killed in the accident, the department of foreign affairs in Dublin confirmed. The remaining dead had not been identified.

Murray and Roberts, the South African construction company that organised the boat party to celebrate the completion of part of the Bahrain World Trade Centre building, said 15 of its staff were safe but 10 had died in the sinking. They were four South Africans, three Britons, two Indian nationals and one Pakistani.

The chief executive, Brian Bruce, said the company had 25 employees in Bahrain, including 11 Britons. "We are deeply shocked by this tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to all those who have been affected," he said.

Two other expat firms, WS Atkins and Nass, involved in the building of the World Trade Centre had staff involved in the disaster.

Atkins said five members of its Bahrain-based staff and three partners or relations had been confirmed dead. One staff member and a relative are still missing.

A worker at Delmon Readymix confirmed that its staff were also involved but did not give any additional details.

The Bahraini coastguard chief, Youssef al-Katem, said the guests had attended a dinner party aboard the ferry. They dined while the boat was still docked, and it then set sail. Up to 20 people disembarked before it left the dock, he said.

The boat capsized at about 9.45pm (1845pm GMT), less than a mile from shore.

Mr al-Katem said a survivor first alerted authorities to the accident via his mobile phone.

Raymond Austin, an employee of Delmon Readymix from Kent, told the BBC he had disembarked before the boat set sail. His daughter said he and two colleagues had decided to take the employees off the boat because the number of people aboard had made them fear for their safety. Mr Austin was "shaken up and distraught" after hearing the boat had sunk.

A Bahraini health ministry official, Nabeel al-Ansari, told Reuters most of those admitted to hospital had already been discharged. "Initially there were 33 brought by rescue teams; 31 were discharged and two have been admitted, both Indian," he said. "One Indian has a serious brain injury."

Bahrain's interior ministry said three Egyptians, three Bahrainis and an American were among the survivors.

Commander Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for the US fifth fleet, told the BBC they had been nearby when the boat capsized. "It happened one mile east of where we're headquartered, so as soon as we got the call we immediately started to move our people and our boats to that area - probably within about 15 or 20 minutes."

US and Bahraini officials said there was no indication the sinking was the result of an attack. "Up to this moment, it appears totally unlikely," the information minister, Mohammed Abdul-Ghaffar Abdullah, told Reuters.

An interior ministry spokesman said the ship's captain, who is not a Bahrani citizen, was being investigated.

The plant handled the packing of explosives, it said.

Rescue workers were still searching for the nine missing employees, the report said.

Local officials in Xiadian township, where the factory was located, refused to comment on the blast, while phone calls to the company went unanswered.

Investigations into the cause of the explosion were ongoing, the report said.

In a separate report, Xinhua said that eight workers were killed and one other was reported missing after a explosion rocked the Wannianhong firecracker factory in northern China's Shanxi province on Saturday.

The cause of the accident was under investigation, it said.

Work safety standards are at notoriously low levels in many Chinese industries as companies try to keep up with rising demand caused by rapid economic growth.

According to the work safety administration, 15,396 people died in 12,800 industrial, mining and commercial accidents last year.

She smelled burned powder, and saw there was a "wall of flames" inside the men's washroom before staff herded some two dozen customers outside. "I thought the roof was caving in. People were screaming," she told Reuters.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair told reporters that a device in the washroom had caused a flash fire, and the unidentified male victim had suffered severe burns.

"It appears that there has been a very hot and intense fire in the enclosed area within the washroom," Blair said. "We are still very preliminary in our investigation to determine the cause of this fire, and we are still determining whether or not this was a purposeful act or an accident."

Police closed off a busy block close to one of Toronto's main shopping districts for a large part of the day as they investigated the cause of the fire.

They used a robot to trigger a controlled explosion after finding a suspicious package near the coffee shop, but that package was harmless.

"It appears there was a device, but we don't know whether the person brought it in with him, or it he was an innocent party, or if he was a suicide, we just don't know," Staff Sergeant Don Cole said of the device inside the restaurant.

"It's not something that just blew up by itself, it was some device."

Police also evacuated a second Tim Hortons further away from Toronto's downtown core after a suspicious package was reported, but Cole said that seemed to be merely a precaution.

The bikers were traveling near West Haven around 3:30 p.m. when they were shot, said State Police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance.

Police were considering a number of possible motives including road rage, and were searching for a sport utility vehicle with Florida license plates, Vance said.

Roger Mariani, 61, of Stratford, pulled over before realizing he had been shot in the upper torso, Vance said. He later died at the Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Paul Carrol, 37, of Bridgeport, who was grazed by a bullet, was treated at the hospital and released, Vance said.

Sheriff's investigators said Richard Sciara, 61, Danny Reeves, 49, and Michael Mendez, 60, admitted performing at least eight surgeries, including castrations and testicle replacements, on six consenting clients over the past year. None of the three is licensed to practice medicine, officials said.

The suspects, all residents of the house in Haywood County, in western North Carolina, where the surgeries were allegedly performed, were arrested Thursday. They were being held on $150,000 bond each and could make their first court appearances Monday, Bonfoey said.

The sheriff's office had investigated reports of sadomasochistic acts at the house in 2004, but concluded there was nothing illegal going on because the participants appeared to be willing adults.

Renewed scrutiny, prompted by a citizen who made "strange statements" to Bonfoey, revealed that illegal surgeries were taking place, the prosecutor said.

Detectives who searched the home Wednesday found medical supplies that included scalpels, sutures, bandages, anesthetic and artificial replacement testicles, sheriff's officials said.

Also seized were videotaping equipment, and video recordings of the surgeries, sheriff's officials said. Photos and videos made at the "dungeon" were apparently featured on a locally produced sadomasochistic Web site, officials said.

"This right here beats anything I have ever seen," Sheriff Tom Alexander told the Asheville Citizen-Times, which reported that victims may have come from as far away as South America.

Each man faces 10 felony counts _ five each of castration without malice and conspiracy to commit castration without malice _ as well as eight misdemeanor counts of performing medical acts without a license. Each felony carries a maximum three years and three months in prison, Bonfoey said.

"Assuming that the victims consented to this _ and we don't know that for sure yet _ that doesn't make it a defense," Bonfoey said. "We can't have people who are not medical doctors lopping off limbs and other body parts."