Dozens of people are involved in the search. But bad weather is reported to be hampering their efforts. It happened in the far north of iran, near the city of tabriz, close to the border with azerbaijan. President raisi, seen here on the left, had been visiting a dam project. This is thought to be footage of him earlier in the day, travelling in a convoy of three helicopters. First reports that something had gone wrong were announced on state tv. Translation there are unconfirmed reports of an incident involving the helicopter carrying the president in thejolfa region. Initial reports cite a hard landing for the helicopter carrying the president. President raisi, considered a hardliner, is the second most powerfulfigure in iran and has been regarded as a possible successor to the Supreme Leader, ali khamenei. There is no word yet on any casualties today, but across iran, there have been prayers for the president s safety. Jon donnison, bbc news. And i want to take you to the live pictu
that the captain was certainly aware of the forecast. they felt secure and confident about their loved ones on board this ship. but we did hear also from a mother who got an e-mail from her daughter who was part of the crew. saying the weather had gotten bad. now they have spotted life jackets, the oil sheen, the container. we saw the video of them pulling up that life ring they also found in the water. when you talked about the conditions at the time when the ship went miss, unfortunately, the conditions still aren t good. i mean, we re hearing search teams have had to weather 150-mile-an-hour wind gusts, 30-foot waves. right. when you talk about the kind of conditions that would be a problem for a container ship making this route, you know it s also a problem for rescue teams. and the break really did come from some of the planes, the search planes that were flying over the water. they ve covered 70,000 miles. that s how big the initial search area was.