Indonesian rescue teams are searching for approximately 130 passengers and crew members after a passenger ferry capsized and sank in the Java Sea during severe weather on Sunday. The vessel, named Virgo Transport 8, was carrying more than 240 people when it encountered heavy seas. According to the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office, at least 107 people have been rescued, while the bodies of six passengers were recovered as rescue operations expanded around the ship’s last known location. The ferry departed from Surabaya in East Java and was traveling to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan province when the tragedy occurred. I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office, stated that the captain reported rough seas with waves reaching up to 3 meters, or 10 feet, before issuing a distress call indicating that the ship was listing. Authorities subsequently learned that the vessel had overturned and sunk. The rescue agency received the incident report two hours after losing contact with the ship at around 2 a.m. on Sunday. The official passenger manifest recorded 243 individuals on board, comprising 213 passengers and 30 crew members, although discrepancies between manifests and actual passenger counts are frequent in Indonesia. Authorities deployed four vessels, including a navy ship, alongside a helicopter and nearby tugboats to assist with the search effort. Hundreds of concerned relatives gathered at a command center located at Banjarmasin’s Trisakti port on Sunday to check passenger lists and await updates regarding their missing loved ones. Indonesia relies heavily on ferries as a vital mode of transportation across its vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, though maritime accidents occur frequently due to lax safety enforcement. This incident follows a series of recent maritime disasters in the region, including two separate ferry fires in Indonesian waters over the previous month, as well as a deadly ferry fire in the Philippines just days prior.
Source: npr.org
