It is bitterly cold in the midday sun at the Port of Dover.
The temperature reads 5C but it feels far lower as the chill from the Channel sweeps inland.
It is hard to imagine the desperation felt by those boarding a flimsy vessel in pitch black, freezing conditions from France overnight, in a bid to reach UK shores.
Four people are now confirmed to have died. Around 40 are believed to have been in the dinghy and many have been taken to hospitals in Kent.
As news broke of the tragedy, dozens more asylum seekers, including children, arrived at the port of Dover.
They were seen walking along the gangway at around 10.30am in foggy conditions, wrapped in thick clothing from their treacherous journey.
A border force official carrying a young baby, around two-years-old, walked off a lifeboat to British shores.
They are the lucky ones in this ongoing game of chance across the world’s busiest shipping lane.
One Dover-based fisherman said the temperature of the sea mid-Channel was just 9C.
The trawlerman, who asked not to be named, said: "If you went into the sea mid-channel without a dry suit or protective clothing in those temperatures you would have about five minutes before you began to struggle.
“You would start to get cramp in your limbs which would make things really difficult to try and stay afloat."
Earlier today The Mirror reported how a group of people were seen clinging to a rescue boat as theirs started to sink in the middle of the English Channel.
Four migrants tragically died when a boat, carrying up to 50, sank in sub-zero temperatures just five miles off the coast of Dungeness in Kent.
Rescuers saved up to 43 people including children as video from the harrowing mission shows multiple people gripping a lifeboat as their small dingy starts to fold in on itself.
A clip showed children and adults in freezing temperatures. Not all of them are wearing life jackets and one person appears to be in a short-sleeved shirt.
Other images showed the surviving migrants arriving safely in Dover. Children are seen bundled up in coats as they walk off the rescue boat.
Images from Dover showed those who had been rescued, including small children.
The boat, which was carrying up to 50 people, got into difficulty in icy waters during sub-zero temperatures in the early hours of this morning - with the coastguard and navy ships racing to the scene.
Temperatures last night were said to be -4C as rescue boats and ambulances were called at about 3am before launching crews off the coast.
Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) lifeboats were launched from Dover, Dungeness, Hastings and Ramsgate alongside coastguard rescue teams from Deal, Dungeness and Folkestone.
Opening Prime Minister's Questions, Rishi Sunak expressed his “sorrow” at the “capsizing of a small boat” in the English Channel, telling MPs there had been a “tragic loss of human life”.
Sir Keir Starmer said it is “heartbreaking” that there have been more deaths in the Channel.
It is a little over a year since 32 people died when their boat sank in the Channel. Five women and a girl were among those killed in the tragedy, in what was last year described as the deadliest incident of its kind ever.
This year more than 44,000 asylum seekers have crossed the Channel, more than in any other on record.
