AT LEAST SEVEN people have been killed and 11 are still missing after a ferry sank in rough seas near Indonesia’s resort island of Bali.
Rescuers also saved 39 people from the choppy waters after the KMP Yunice sank near East Java’s Ketapang port last night.
Bali Search and Rescue Agency chief Gede Darmada said the ferry was bound for Bali’s Gilimanuk port, a 50-kilometre trip.
It carried 41 passengers, 13 crew members and three canteen waiters, the National Search and Rescue Agency said today, revising earlier numbers.
The agency said 39 people were rescued and at least seven bodies were recovered.
Two tug boats and two inflatable boats have been searching for the missing people since last night, battling waves up to four metres high in the overnight darkness.
Ferry tragedies are common in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where ferries are often used as transport and safety regulations can lapse.
In 2018, an overcrowded ferry with about 200 people on board sank in a deep volcanic crater lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people.
In one of the country’s worst recorded disasters, an overcrowded passenger ship sank in February 1999 with 332 people aboard. There were only 20 survivors.
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