Shafaqna Pakistan: Indonesian rescuers were searching the Java Sea on Sunday for 130 people still missing after a passenger vessel sank, while 113 others were evacuated and six deaths were reported, the country’s search and rescue agency said.
The agency said the ship, carrying 243 people, including 30 crew members, lost contact with authorities early Sunday amid bad weather and was subsequently reported missing.
The vessel, Virgo Transport 8, had departed the East Java city of Surabaya on Saturday, bound for Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan.
Later in the day, rescuers confirmed that 107 people had been found alive, while 130 remained unaccounted for. The agency also reported six fatalities after confirming that the vessel had sunk.
I Putu Sudayana, the head of the agency’s Banjarmasin office, said in a video statement that evacuees had been transported using different ships and some of them would be taken to an East Java port.
Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter to the passenger vessel’s last known position, he said.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries for transportation, with sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.
However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in a relatively high accident rate.
Source: Dunya News
