The survivors of the blast endured four or five days of no food, high temperatures and full exposure to the sun on their makeshift rafts;[41][42] some, driven mad by these conditions, simply jumped into the water and were devoured by sharks.[42] From this point on, sources vary greatly. According to an article in Time, Bahia’s loss was not discovered until 8 July, when 22 survivors were picked up by a freighter, Balfe.[41][43][N 9] Author Robert Scheina, however, says that the disaster was revealed when Rio Grande do Sul arrived on station four days later to take Bahia’s place and could not find her.[4]

Sources also disagree on the number rescued and final death toll. The official history of the ship gives 36 rescued and 336 dead,[3] Poder Naval Online gives 36 and 339,[6][N 10] and Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships 1906–1921 gives no number for survivors but 294 for deaths.[1] Contemporary news articles also published varying numbers; in an article published a day after the accident became known, The Evening Independent stated that the ship carried 383 men, though it did not give any more information.[44] The New York Times gave figures of 28 saved and 347 lost,[42] while the St. Petersburg Times gave 32 and 395.[45] Sources do agree, however, that four American radiomen were killed.[3][6][46]

Rescued crewmen believed that they had hit a mine that detonated one of the ship’s magazines.[41] Vice Admiral Jorge Dodsworth Martins—Brazil’s chief of naval intelligence—thought that Bahia could have been mined or torpedoed by U-530,[42][47] which surrendered under strange circumstances in Argentina on 10 July (some two months after Germany’s surrender), but the Argentine Naval Ministry stated that it would have been impossible for the submarine to travel from the site of the sinking to Mar del Plata in six days (4–10 July).[47][N 11] By late October, the Brazilian Navy had come to the conclusion that Bahia had been sunk by an accidental explosion.[46][49]