A second deep-sea rescue vessel will arrive in the seas off Kyrenia on Wednesday, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said on Tuesday as searches for the wreck of the ferry which sank off Cyprus’ northern coast on Sunday continue.

The ship, named as the TCG Alemdar, is reportedly capable of conducting searches at depths of up to 3,000 metres beneath the surface of the sea. It will join the TCG Isin, which arrived in the waters off Kyrenia on Tuesday morning.

“The ship has arrived, and possesses the most advanced technology currently available in the world,” Erhurman said while addressing the families of the 20 people who remain unaccounted for after the ship sank, as they waited for news outside the new port of Kyrenia for a third consecutive day.

He added that the TCG Alemdar will “also come to provide support”, but stressed that the search for the ferry will be a “slow process”.

“Hopefully, we will be able to provide you with information at a certain point today. If we do not achieve the desired results today it does not mean we are giving up. Operations will continue tomorrow with the support of the second ship,” he said.

“Our entire focus right now is on reaching the sunken vessel at depth and bringing everything we can to the surface”.

It is hoped that the ferry’s black box will also be brought to the surface, with conflicting reports continuing to abound regarding the circumstances which led to the ferry’s sinking.

The ship’s captain, named by the north’s ’transport minister’ Erhan Arikli as 67-year-old Mustafa Oz, said in court on Monday that “waves broke the front off the boat”, but passengers who were aboard the boat have since said that it was taking on water almost as soon as it left the port at midday on Sunday.

Some said that they asked the captain to turn the boat back to Kyrenia, but that Oz refused.