4 rescued, over 100 missing as waves sink Indonesian boat

The Indonesian Ministry of Transportation has confirmed three people, including two children, have been found dead, while 39 survivors have been pulled from the water, some after desperately clinging to fishing buoys for hours in the huge swell until help arrived.

The search resumed Monday for a ferry missing in central Indonesia with more than 100 people on board, despite almost two days passing since the stricken vessel was last heard from.

The KM Marina had been traveling from Kolaka regency, Southeast Sulawesi province, to Wajo city to the west when it was hit by large waves Saturday afternoon and its crew reported to port authorities that the vessel had begun taking in water.

ANTARA FOTO/REUTERS Rescue workers, police and residents unload the body of a victim who died after the boat sank. However, the vessel is yet to be found, after it went off the radar in a storm in South Sulawesi’s Bone Strait with at least 108 passengers and 10 crew members aboard.

Fishermen found four people alive in a fish trap and took them to hospital in the town of Siwa on Sulawesi, the head of the local rescue team, Roki Azikin, told Reuters.

“The ship has not sunk”, a South Sulawesi police spokesman said by phone.

Operational chief of the local search rescue agency Ivan Ahmad Rizki Titus said the National Search and Rescue Agency was deploying a helicopter and boats, while the navy was sending in warships to join the rescue efforts.

More than a dozen of those reportedly on board were children.

Indonesian boat accidents have killed hundreds of people in recent years.

“The waves were five metres high at the time of the accident”, he said.

Indonesia is a vast country with over 17,000 islands having population of 250 million.