High tides hindered rescuers today as they searched for nearly 250 people missing and feared dead after a ferry capsized off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
About 250 passengers and 17 crew were believed to have been aboard the 700-ton
Teratai Primawhen it sank yesterday on its way from the western port of Parepare to Samarinda on the Indonesian half of Borneo island.
At least 22 people, including four crew members, were pulled from the sea by fishermen before the military launched a rescue operation. The others on board were feared dead.
The ferry went down 50 kilometres off the coast off western Sulawesi.
Transport minister Jusman Syafi'i Djamal said the captain - who was among those pulled alive from the sea - reported that 150 people jumped off the boat before it sank.
"We have prepared a search and rescue operation, but now there are high waves hampering the process," Mr Djamal said.
The ship radioed that it was "hit by a storm" before it went down, said a port official.
Boats are a major form of transportation in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and a population of 235 million. Poor enforcement of safety regulations and overcrowding causes accidents that claim hundreds of lives each year.
In December 2006, a crowded Indonesian ferry broke apart and sank in the Java Sea during a violent storm, killing more than 400 people.
AP