Key points
- A top police official says 23 people have been rescued
- Indonesia’s president has ordered an immediate emergency response
- Says the cause of the accident was “bad weather”
ISLAMABAD: At least four people were dead and dozens unaccounted for Thursday after a ferry sank on its way to the resort island of Bali, according to local authorities who said 23 survivors had been plucked from the water so far.
AFP cited rescuers as saying they were racing to find 38 missing people in rough seas after the vessel carrying 65 passengers sank before midnight on Wednesday as it sailed to the popular holiday destination from Indonesia’s main island Java.
“23 rescued, 4 dead,” Rama Samtama Putra, police chief of Banyuwangi in East Java, where the boat departed, AFP reported.
“Emergency response”
President Prabowo Subianto, who was on a foreign trip, ordered an immediate emergency response, cabinet secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement Thursday, adding the cause of the accident was “bad weather”.
Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency head Nanang Sigit confirmed the same figures in a statement, and said efforts to reach the boat were initially hampered by adverse weather conditions that have since cleared up.
The agency had earlier said 61 people were missing and four rescued, without giving a cause for the boat’s sinking, AFP reported.
Search efforts
A rescue team of at least 54 personnel, including from the navy and police were dispatched along with inflatable rescue boats, while a bigger vessel was later sent from Surabaya city to assist the search efforts.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsised in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person, according to Al Jazeera.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra island.
