Indonesia rescues 11 who swam for hours to survive boat capsize
Photo:
SONNY TUMBELAKA
Indonesian rescuers have found alive 11 people missing at sea, after they survived a boat capsize in bad weather by swimming for at least six hours to the nearest island.
Two boats and dozens of rescuers hunted for those missing, after the boat with 18 aboard overturned off the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra at about 11am Monday local time.
"It was raining hard when the incident happened," island official Rinto Wardana told Reuters. "Some of the passengers managed to swim and reach the nearest island."
Seven were rescued earlier, Wardana added. Ten of those on board were local government officials on a business trip to the town of Tuapejat, the boat's destination when it left Sikakap, another small town in the Mentawai Islands. .
The Mentawai Islands consist of four main islands and many smaller ones.
Boats and ferries are a regular mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where accidents are caused by bad weather and lax safety standards that often allow vessels to be overloaded.
When a ferry sank this month
near the tourist resort island of Bali
with 65 aboard, 30 passengers survived, while 18 died and 17 went missing.
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