Fears for survivors trapped on Bali ferry with 29 still missing

Rescuers are rushing to save the lives of passengers still trapped onboard a sunken ferry in Bali.

Five people have already been confirmed dead after disaster struck three miles off the coast of the Indonesian resort island of Bali late on Wednesday.

‘The condition of this ship is fully submerged, so there is a possibility that there are people inside the ferry.

‘But right now we are focusing on the surface of the water first,’ Surabaya Search and Rescue head Nanang Sigit said.

Many of the 31 rescued were unconscious after drifting in choppy waters for hours, police said.

An officer at the port witnessed the sinking before rescuers could be alerted.

“The ferry could not be contacted via radio from the beginning. Then it could be contacted by other ships from the same company. But the ship was already in a tilting condition,” Sigit said.

Survivors reported a leak in the engine room of the ferry, which was carrying 14 heavy trucks.

Eka Toniansyah was among the 31 people who was on the Tunu Pratama Jaya when it sank.

He said: ‘The ferry tilted and immediately sank. Most of the passengers were from Indonesia. I was with my father. My father is dead.’

Another survivor, named Supardi, said: ‘When the ferry started to tilt, I initially intended to jump into the sea, but the ship quickly sank.

‘So, I didn’t need to jump anymore but sank when the water entered the ship, maybe about seven metres deep, so I immediately climbed up to the top.

‘I met two other people whom I eventually joined. Then another person joined, so there were four of us in total, all using a life jacket.

‘Until this morning, one of us died, while the other three survived.’

The country’s search and rescue agency has deployed a helicopter to the location and 13 underwater rescuers but said their efforts are being hampered by strong currents and winds.

Video provided by the national rescue agency Basarnas showed what appeared to be the body of one person being carried to shore from a fishing boat in calm seas.

There has been no official statement on the nationalities of the passengers, but a manifest list broadcast by news channel MetroTV indicated there were no foreigners on board.

Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency head Nanang Sigit said rescuers would follow currents and expand the search area if there were still unaccounted for people by the end of the day.

‘For today’s search, we are still focusing on search above the water where initial victims were found,’ he added.

President Prabowo Subianto, who was on a trip to Saudi Arabia, ordered an immediate emergency response, cabinet secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement today, adding the cause of the accident was ‘bad weather’.

The ferry crossing from Ketapang port in Java’s Banyuwangi regency to Bali’s Gilimanuk port – one of the busiest in Indonesia – is around three miles as the crow flies and takes around one hour.

It is often used by people crossing between the islands by car.

Ferries are a common mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, and accidents are common as lax safety standards often allow vessels to be overloaded without adequate life-saving equipment.

A small ferry capsized in 2023 near Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 15 people.

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