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29 dead as ferry sinks
19/10/2007 09:56 - (SA)
Jakarta - At least 29 people were killed and 125 rescued after an Indonesian ferry sank in high seas off the island of Sulawesi, officials said on Friday.
Residents near the town of Bau Bau on southeast Sulawesi heard survivors screaming and pleading for help after the Acita 03 capsized at about 21:00 (13:00 GMT) on Thursday, ElShinta radio reported.
ElShinta's reporter said 151 people were believed to be on board. Indonesian ferries however are known for carrying more passengers than the number officially registered on their manifestos.
"Twenty-nine people have died. The bodies were received from midnight last night until 8:00 am this morning. Nineteen survivors are being treated for shock," Bau Bau general hospital spokesperson, Laode Hamdansyah, told AFP.
A hospitalised survivor, Safruddin, told ElShinta that he had been heading to work on Sulawesi when the vessel began to sink.
"I thought I would die. I managed to get out of the boat... I held on to two pieces of foam and then I passed out. I woke up at the port and I threw up," he said, adding that he did not know how he got to port.
Safruddin said his two-year-old child and wife survived by clinging to wooden planks, and fishermen later rescued them.
Search and rescue team chief Roki Asikin told ElShinta that 125 people had been rescued, "but we do not know how many people were aboard the ship, so we don't know how many people are still missing".
String of transport disasters
He said people had been trapped in the vessel when it went down.
Local policeman, Idwar, told AFP that the ship capsized about 11km from Bau Bau city, though the Elshinta reporter said it went down just 500m from shore.
Idwar said the vessel had been travelling from Tomea island to Bau Bau on Buton island, around 1 500km northeast of Indonesia's capital Jakarta.
Millions of people are returning home over the next few days across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, after a week of holiday ending on Friday to mark the close of Ramadan.
The ElShinta reporter said high seas had initially hindered the search for survivors but had calmed on Friday.
Sea links are crucial in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of some 17 500 islands, but safety standards are frequently low or not enforced.
The accident is the latest in a string of transport disasters in the world's fourth most populous nation.
Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on passenger boat operators to improve safety in February after scores of people were killed when a ferry caught fire off Jakarta.
In December last year, about 400 people drowned when another ferry sank off Java.
The government is considering new regulations for old ships.
- AFP
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