September 13, 2026 | 12:11 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people lost contact with authorities in the Java Sea on Sunday.
Local authorities said 103 people had been rescued, but of those, one person had died.
"We have carried out efforts to search for victims to the fullest extent. There were passengers who...had already been successfully evacuated by the units at the scene. We can inform you that the total number of evacuated passengers is 103 people," I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office, told reporters.
One of the rescued passengers died, he added.
The Virgo Transport 8 was traveling from Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province.
It departed on Saturday at 10:13 a.m. local time (0330 UTC), but the ship's operator lost contact with the vessel early Sunday amid bad weather.
Search and rescue teams launched an operation after the operator alerted authorities.
"The ship's operator reported the incident to authorities after receiving information that the vessel had encountered bad weather," Sudayana had said in an earlier video briefing.
The ship's last known position was in the Java Sea, roughly 148 kilometers (92 miles) from a pier in Banjarmasin, according to the Associated Press.
Search operation underway
Rescue teams were dispatched to Banjarmasin's Basirih Search and Rescue pier, with a rescue ship sent toward the vessel's estimated last known location.
Sudayana added that authorities were mobilizing all available personnel and equipment given the large number of people aboard. The agency was coordinating with maritime authorities while closely monitoring weather conditions in the area, he said.
Indonesia, a nation of roughly 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries for transportation, with sea travel often cheaper and more accessible than flying. But safety enforcement across the country's maritime sector has been inconsistent, contributing to a comparatively high rate of accidents.
Read: BNPB Insists Disaster Emergency Budget Has No Limit
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