An Italian mayor has told of a “gruesome sight” on a resort beach after a migrant boat carrying up to 170 people crashed against rocks and broke apart off the Calabrian coast.

At least 58 people died, including some children, when the overcrowded 20m wooden sailing boat sank and disintegrated in stormy weather.

In a grim scene, bodies have been washing up near the seaside resort of Steccato di Cutro, with wreckage from the wooden gulet strewn across a large stretch of coast.

Initial reports from ANSA and other Italian news agencies, spoke of 27 bodies washed up on the beach and more found in the water.

Cutro’s mayor Antonio Ceraso told the SkyTG24 news channel that he had seen “a spectacle that you would never want to see in your life … a gruesome sight … that stays with you for all your life”.

“There had been landings but never a tragedy like this,” he told another media outlet Rai News.

Authorities said there were 81 survivors, with 20 hospitalised.

One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges, the Guardia di Finanza customs police said.

A member of the cynophile police and his dog patrol Steccato di Cutro, beach. Photo: Getty

The vessel had set sail from Turkey several days ago with migrants from Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries.

Agencies said there were up to 170 people — including women and children — crammed onto the boat, based on accounts of survivors.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed “deep sorrow” for the deaths and blamed human traffickers.

“It is criminal to launch a boat just 20 meters long with 200 people on board in adverse weather,” she said in a statement.

“It is inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of a ticket under the false perspective of a safe journey.”

She vowed to block migrant sea departures to prevent such disasters.

Her right-wing administration has taken a hard line on migration since taking office in October, mostly by restricting the activities of rescue charities with tough new laws that won final parliamentary approval on Thursday.

Ms Meloni accuses charities of encouraging migrants to make the dangerous sea journey to Italy, acting as so-called “pull factors”.

Charities reject this, saying migrants set off regardless of whether rescue boats are in the vicinity.

“Stopping, blocking and hindering the work of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) will have only one effect: the death of vulnerable people left without help,” Spanish migrant rescue charity Open Arms tweeted in reaction to Sunday’s shipwreck.

Some migrants who were saved from the shipwreck huddle in blankets. Photo: Getty

Most survivors were from Afghanistan, as well as a few from Pakistan and a couple from Somalia.

“Many of these migrants came from Afghanistan and Iran, fleeing conditions of great hardship”, Italian President Sergio Mattarella said.

Ignazio Mangione, an Italian Red Cross official, told SkyTG24 that very few of the children believed to have been on the boat survived.

In a separate statement, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was essential to stop sea crossings that he said offer migrants the “illusory mirage of a better life” in Europe, enrich traffickers, and cause such tragedies.

Bits of the destroyed boat are strewn across the Italian coast. Photo: Getty

Pope Francis, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina and long a vocal advocate for migrants’ rights, said he was praying for everyone caught up in the shipwreck.

Italy is one of the main landing points for migrants trying to enter Europe by sea, with many seeking to travel on to richer northern European nations. The so-called central Mediterranean route is known as one of the world’s most dangerous.

The United Nations Missing Migrants Project has registered more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014. More than 220 have died or disappeared this year, it estimates.