BANJARMASIN, Indonesia — Indonesian rescue crews were still searching the Java Sea on Sunday for about 130 people after a passenger ferry overturned in rough weather, officials said, as families crowded a port command center waiting for names that had not yet appeared on any list. The vessel, the Virgo Transport 8, was traveling from Surabaya in East Java to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan when contact was lost early Sunday. Its manifest listed 243 people, 213 passengers and 30 crew.
The ship was also carrying dozens of vehicles. Officials cautioned that passenger counts on Indonesian ferries often differ from the written manifest. According to the most widely cited figures from the national search and rescue agency Basarnas and international wire reports late Sunday, at least six people were confirmed dead and more than 100 had been pulled from the water. About 130 remained missing.
Some Indonesian briefings put the number evacuated at 103, including six fatalities, while later statements from Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi referred to 113 people accounted for, of whom 107 were alive. The gap reflects an operation still in motion, with commercial ships still arriving at port and names still being checked against passenger lists. None of the figures should be treated as final.
I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office, said the captain had reported rough seas and waves up to about 3 meters, or 10 feet, and that the ship was listing before a distress call. The operator, PT Virgo, notified authorities about two hours after contact was lost around 2 a.m. local time. The last known position was in the Java Sea, roughly 148 kilometers, or 92 miles, from Banjarmasin.
A passing helicopter later reported that the ferry had overturned but had not sunk, Purwagandhi told reporters in Banjarmasin. “We cannot yet determine whether the victims are still inside the vessel or whether they may be some distance away from the location of the vessel,” he said. Officials with the Directorate General of Sea Transportation said they were examining whether natural conditions, technical failure, or human factors were responsible. The National Transportation Safety Committee was assigned to investigate.
Purwagandhi said the port authority had issued a sailing permit on Saturday after weather forecasts indicated conditions were acceptable for departure. Survivor accounts described a sudden list. One passenger, Rinto Arahab, told reporters he clung to the ship’s railings after it flipped, then climbed higher as the vessel tossed in the water. Another survivor, Ahmad Saudi, said the ship tilted sharply around 1:20 a.m. while many passengers were sleeping, with no alarm that he recalled.
He said high waves and strong wind continued to batter a life raft for hours before another vessel arrived. Nearby commercial ships reached the scene first. Tugboats and a cargo vessel, including the MV Haida, took scores of people aboard and began steaming toward Trisakti Port in Banjarmasin and another harbor in East Java. By Sunday afternoon, Basarnas, the navy, maritime police, and other agencies had expanded the search with additional ships and helicopters.
Officials said weather during the daytime rescue window was workable, though waves remained a factor for smaller boats. Hundreds of relatives gathered at Trisakti Port, scanning handwritten lists and asking for names. One woman, identified only as Putri, said she had been speaking by phone with her husband on the ferry before the line went dead. Another resident, Rusmilawati, came looking for eight relatives returning from Java.
Officials set up a command post at the port and appealed for patience as identifications continued. Ferries are a daily necessity across Indonesia’s thousands of islands, and serious accidents are not rare. Investigators have not yet said whether weather alone overturned the Virgo Transport 8, or whether loading, stability, or other factors played a part.
For now the priority remains the water: finding those still missing, bringing the living ashore, and accounting for every name on a list that may not have been complete to begin with.
