Jakarta - One body and a total of 33 survivors were rescued
two days after a passenger ferry capsized off the Indonesian province
of West Sulawesi, leaving an estimated 230 others missing and feared
dead, officials said Tuesday.
The body of one of the boat passengers meanwhile had been found in
the Majene waters and was taken ashore by a navy warship to Majene
port, while eight more survivors were picked up from the rough seas,
said Junaidi, an official in the West Sulawesi port town of Majene.
He said seven of the survivors were picked up by a cargo vessel
that passed around the sunken ferry and they were taken to the
Makassar port in south Sulawesi capital.
By late Monday night, a total of 33 survivors were known to have
survived the accident, Junaidi, who like many Indonesians goes only
by one name, said.
The ferry, Teratai Prima, left Pare-pare on Sulawesi island in
central Indonesia Saturday evening for Samarinda, East Kalimantan.
The boat sank before dawn Sunday off the coast of Majene in West
Sulawesi after being hit by waves as high as 4 metres during bad
weather, survivors said.
Most passengers were asleep and had little time to react.
Transport Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal on Monday blamed the
accident on the bad weather and said a thorough investigation would
be made, in particular of the lack of coordination between port
officials in Pare-Pare and the captain of the ferry, who survived the
disaster.
Jusman said the country's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency had
issued warnings that huge waves and storms would occur through the
sea lane between Sulawesi and Borneo islands.
Head of Pare-pare harbour administration Nurwahida said that in
addition to its 250 passengers and 17 crew members, the ferry was
also carrying about 200 tons of cargo when a storm hit the boat and
sank about 50 kilometres off the coastal town of Majene.
However, local media cited missing relatives as
saying that at least 45 names were not listed at the ferry's
manifest, which would bring the number of passengers close to 300
people.
A search team of hundreds of marine, army and police officers
supported by four warships, two marine police boats, search and
rescue vessels and fishing boats, as well as two aircraft from the
Indonesian Air Force and Navy, continued their search for the
missing persons, officials said.
Authorities also ordered all ships passing though the area to look
for possible survivors or the bodies of those missing.
The ferry accident was the latest in a series of marine disasters
in recent years in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000
islands that depends heavily on ocean transport.
In December 2006, a ship with 638 people aboard sank off East Java
province. Only 230 people survived.
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