A woman whose relatives were on board a missing ferry, cries next to a board featuring names of passengers at a center set up in Siwa, in South Sulawesi.
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The search has resumed for at least 74 people still missing after a boat sank off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island at the weekend.
Rough conditions hampered earlier efforts to locate the stricken vessel with 89 adults, 19 children and 10 crew aboard, after it sent out a distress signal Saturday afternoon reporting an accident. “We hope that all of them can survive”.
Hasan, 67, said his nephew Wiwin, a technician on the boat, called him as the ferry struggled in a violent storm. “The team from our headquarters… all that we have, we are deploying there but we’re facing high waves”, he said.
“After that he said he had to go downstairs to check on the engine”.
“The boat has not been found because the weather has not been good”, he added, saying the boat was constructed from fibreglass and was therefore hard to sink.
“We are still searching for the survivors”.
Searchers also found an inflated life raft with emergency supplies drifting in the sea with no people on it, he said. Fishermen discovered four people alive in a fish trap.
The KM Marina had been traveling from Kolaka regency, Southeast Sulawesi province, to Wajo city to the west when it was hit by large waves Saturday afternoon and its crew reported to port authorities that the vessel had begun taking in water. Rescuers have pulled out dozens of survivors and a number of dead from the passenger boat that sank in central Indonesia after being buffeted by high waves, and were battling bad weather Sunday to reach scores of others still missing.
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The Indonesian archipelago of more than 17,000 islands is heavily dependent on ferry services, but the industry has a poor safety record and fatal accidents are common.
