Thirty-one people were rescued and eleven were still wanted Monday after an Indonesian ferry sank in the Makassar Strait, which separates the islands of Sulawesi and Borneo, authorities said.
• Read also – Indonesia: a ferry fails on a submerged island with more than 800 people on board
Several tugs and fishing boats picked up survivors and brought them to shore after the KM Ladang Pertiwi which was crossing the strait in the center of the Southeast Asian archipelago sank on Thursday.
“So far 31 people have been rescued and we are still looking for 11 more missing people,” the head of the local rescue team Djunaidi told AFP on Monday, who like many Indonesians only wears a name.
The survivors “have returned home and are generally in good health”, he added.
Rescuers deployed a helicopter and extended the search area to 20 nautical miles around the sinking site.
The ship did not have a license to carry passengers and both the captain and the owner were summoned for questioning, the official said.
The boat did not have a passenger list, but authorities estimate it was carrying 42 people when the crash occurred.
Accidents at sea are numerous in Indonesia, an archipelago made up of 17,000 islands, and where safety instructions are not always respected.
In May, a ferry carrying more than 800 people ran aground in the province of the Lesser Sunda Islands (in Indonesian Nusa Tenggara) and remained stranded for two days without causing any casualties.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in Sumatra, on one of the deepest lakes in the world.
