The BBC's Michael Peschardt: "A fire in the engine room swept out of control"

At least 146 Britons were among 1,100 passengers and crew rescued when the Sun Vista ran into trouble in the Malacca Strait.

They clambered into lifeboats after an electrical fire broke out in the engine room on Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Australian-based Sun Cruises said: "There was a fire in the main switchboard in the engine room at 2.30pm local time."

Ferries and naval vessels responded to an SOS and rescued 472 passengers and 632 crew members as they scrambled overboard.

The survivors were taken to a hotel in the Malaysian resort of Penang, where they are recovering.

Ten in hospital

Ten passengers were sent to Penang Hospital for treatment.

Passengers with lifebelts prepare to quit the doomed liner

The Sun Vista was on its way back to Singapore after a six-day cruise which took it to the Thai resort of Phuket.

Sun Cruises spokesman Steve Douglas said: "All passengers and crew have been saved and were at no point in any immediate danger.

Thomas Bonnard, from the UK, said the ship's captain did not tell the passengers about the fire and he said crew members were "panicky".

Sun Cruises spokesman Stuart Douglas: "We are concentrating on getting everyone home"

Mr Bonnard, 62, from Guisborough, Cleveland, said: "At 2.30pm all the lights went out on the ship and we heard a message over the Tannoy saying `all firefighters' to a certain area.

"Nothing seemed to happen until later in the afternoon, when the captain came out on deck and said there had been a small electrical fire in the ship's engine room, but the CO2 (carbon dioxide) system had gone off and they were going to put things right."

Order to abandon ship

"Then he came out again at about 5.30pm and said the fire was more serious and we were going to have to abandon ship."

William Gibbons, director of the Passenger Shipping Association: "Incidents will happen"

Mr Bonnard, who was enjoying a cruise with his wife Barbara, said people pushed and shoved to get into the lifeboats but overall the evacuation was quite orderly.

He said: "We got our lifejackets on and the lifeboats were lowered into the sea.

"There were some problems getting the lifeboats off, it took about 10 minutes to lower one end of our boat.

The fire broke while the ship was in the Malacca Strait

"Nobody seemed to want to take charge. Luckily there was an Australian in our boat who seemed to know what he was doing."

Mr Bonnard said: "We didn't see the ship go down. The last thing we saw the ship was still smoking, and there was a patch of hull just above the water line that was absolutely glowing from the heat."

Overloaded lifeboats

Peter Andrews, 76, from Rayleigh, Essex, said: "My lifeboat was overloaded, there were 76 people in when the capacity was 45 and the person responsible for it didn't seem to be very confident."

Peter Andrews describes the unfolding drama on board the Sun Vista

He told BBC Radio Essex: "We had a job to control the boat. We started the engine and it cut out. We started it again and it still didn't last long.

"Eventually we got the oars out but couldn't make much progress."

Geoffrey Todd, from the West Midlands, went on the cruise with his wife to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

He said he had lost his wedding certificates, rings and a gold watch, as well as all his clothes.