26 people missing in ferry sinking off Indonesia

The Indonesian search and rescue agency said the ferry ran out of fuel and capsized in bad weather in the Makassar Strait, the sea separating the islands of Sulawesi and Borneo.

At the time of the accident, there were 43 people on the ferry, 17 people were rescued. Currently, a team of 40 rescuers is being deployed to urgently search for the missing.

Maritime accidents are common in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian island nation of about 17,000 islands, and Indonesians rely largely on ferries and boats to get around. Last week, a ferry carrying more than 800 people ran aground in shallow water off East Nusa Tenggara province for two days. These ferry rescue efforts were successful thanks to the support of Indonesia’s state-owned maritime company PT Pelni. To rescue the ferry, rescuers relied on a tugboat dispatched by PT Peni in conjunction with the high tide.

In 2018, more than 150 people were killed when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

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