Irregardless if it was surrounded by other ships and also helos above, the reports are that the listing and floundering were a sudden event apparently not foreseen by the crew who may have thought they had the situation handled and wanted to secure the vessel before adding more confusion to the decks. Something sudden apparently happened that took all of those options away.
Do you have a video link to show the events?
FOX has this on their website: link
As you can see it's daylight. There are ships and aircraft engaged in rescue. But where are the passengers? They must have already been trapped below decks by the crew orders.