At least 15 killed in ferry sinking in Indonesia
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KENDARI, Indonesia – At least 15 passengers were killed when a small ferry capsized during a short 20-minute journey near Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, the national search and rescue agency said on Monday.
The other 33 passengers on board were rescued after the incident on Sunday night, the agency said in a statement.
It added that two of the victims are in hospital.
Photos shared by the rescue agency showed bodies covered in cloth on the floor of the hospital.
The cause of the sinking, which occurred at about midnight, is still unclear.
The vessel was ferrying people between two small towns on either side of Mawasangka Bay, across a distance of just 1km in Muna island, about 200km south of Kendari, the capital of South-east Sulawesi province.
Rescue teams searching for the missing were diving at the location where the vessel sank and patrolling nearby waters in rubber boats, the agency said.
It is common in Indonesia for the number of actual passengers on a boat to differ from the manifest.
Marine incidents occur frequently in the South-east Asian archipelago nation of around 17,000 islands.
People rely on ferries and small boats to travel around, despite poor safety standards.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned
In May 2022, a ferry carrying more than 800 people ran aground in shallow waters off East Nusa Tenggara province
No one was hurt in that incident. REUTERS, AFP
