At least four people have died and dozens are still missing after a ferry sank near Bali.
Rescuers are scouring the waters off the Indonesian island for 30 passengers after the KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya went under late on Wednesday.
Eka Toniansyah was among the 31 survivors and told reporters at the hospital: ‘The ferry tilted and immediately sank.
‘Most of the passengers were from Indonesia. I was with my father. My father is dead.’
President Prabowo Subianto, who was on a trip to Saudi Arabia, ordered an immediate emergency response, cabinet secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement Thursday, adding the cause of the accident was ‘bad weather’.
The country’s search and rescue agency has deployed a helicopter to the location and 13 underwater rescuers but said their efforts are being hampered by strong currents and winds.
Video provided by the national rescue agency Basarnas showed what appeared to be the body of one person being carried to shore from a fishing boat in calm seas.
There has been no official statement on the nationalities of the passengers, but a manifest list broadcast by news channel MetroTV indicated there were no foreigners on board.
Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency head Nanang Sigit said rescuers would follow currents and expand the search area if there were still unaccounted for people by the end of the day.
‘For today’s search, we are still focusing on search above the water where initial victims were found,’ he added.
The ferry crossing from Ketapang port in Java’s Banyuwangi regency to Bali’s Gilimanuk port – one of the busiest in Indonesia – is around three miles as the crow flies and takes around one hour.
It is often used by people crossing between the islands by car.
Ferries are a common mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, and accidents are common as lax safety standards often allow vessels to be overloaded without adequate life-saving equipment.
A small ferry capsized in 2023 near Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 15 people.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
