Latest news with #BaliStrait
CTV News
7 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
Navy ships and helicopters used in intensified search for 30 missing after Indonesian ferry sinks
Rescuers search for victims after a ferry sank in the waters off Jembrana, Bali, Indonesia, Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) GILIMANUK, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities deployed navy ships and helicopters Friday in the intensified search for 30 people still missing almost two days after a ferry sank near the tourist island of Bali. More than 160 rescuers including police and soldiers were involved in the search that resumed after being halted overnight due to poor visibility, said Ribut Eko Suyatno, the deputy chief of operations at the National Search and Rescue Agency. Three helicopters and a thermal drone were searching by air over the Bali Strait, while about 20 vessels and fishing boats were mobilized for the sea search, Suyatno said. As weather forecasts predict high waves and rough waters around the Bali Strait on Friday, he said at least three navy ships were deployed. Videos and photos released by the agency showed rescuers looking desperately from rescue boats in the waters but no new survivors or bodies found by Friday afternoon. 'We are ready to deploy divers to scour the sea if needed and if the weather is fine,' Suyatno said in a statement. The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya ferry sank almost half an hour after leaving Ketapang port in East Java late Wednesday for a trip of about 5 kilometres (3 miles) to Bali's Gilimanuk port. The agency released the names of 29 survivors and six people confirmed dead late Thursday. It didn't release names of the missing, but the passenger manifest showed 30 people still were missing. On Friday, survivors were being treated at Bali's Jembrana Regional Hospital, while the bodies have been handed over to the families for funerals. Distraught relatives gathered at the port office in Gilimanuk, hoping for news of missing family members. Indonesian authorities are investigating the cause of the sinking. Some survivors told rescuers there appeared to be a leak in the engine room of the ferry, which was carrying 22 vehicles including 14 trucks. But a survivor, Bejo Santoso, in an interview with Metro TV, believed that high waves and strong current as the cause of the accident. 'The high waves hit the ferry several times, causing the vessel rolled to the left when it was halfway to Gilimanuk,' said Santoso who travelled alone to Bali by a travel bus. He recalled how trucks, buses and other cars immediately fell and piled up on the left side of the ferry and within less than five minutes the ship sank. 'It all happened so fast that there was not enough time for the crew to issue instructions,' Santoso said, adding that there were a lot of life jackets in the ferry, but in such a short time, only the people on the outer deck could reach it, including him who immediately threw it overboard before jumping into the sea. 'I didn't get to wear a life jacket on board, but held it as a floating tool for hours at sea until a fisherman rescued us early morning with his boat,' Santoso said. He estimated that only half of people onboard able to jump to the sea, some with life jackets and others with two lifeboats. He floated for more than six hours in choppy waters along with three other male passengers, but one of them, who claimed to be suffering from lung disease, died after almost four hours of floating, 'due to panic and drinking too much sea water,' Santoso said. The group of three kept the man's body with them until they were rescued. Ferry tragedies occur regularly in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with weak enforcement of safety regulations often to blame. Fifteen people were killed after a boat capsized off Indonesia's Sulawesi in 2023, while another ferry sank in rough seas near Bali in 2021, leaving seven dead and 11 missing. In 2018, an overcrowded ferry sank with about 200 people on board 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. ___ Firdia Lisnawati, The Associated Press Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Indonesia resumes search for 30 missing ferry passengers
GILIMANUK, Indonesia (Reuters) -Indonesian rescuers are battling strong currents on Friday as they resume the search for 30 people still missing at sea about 35 hours after a ferry sank killing at least six people, officials said. The ferry named KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya was carrying 65 people, all Indonesians, when it sank about 30 minutes after setting sail from East Java bound for the holiday island of Bali on Wednesday night, said search and rescue agency official Ribut Eko Suyatno. Twenty-nine survivors were rescued on Thursday before the search was called off due to poor visibility. Dayu Made Silawati, 55, said her husband, Dewa Gede Adyana Putra Usia, was travelling on the ferry to pick up supplies in Bali for his job as a truck driver. Waiting for news at a rescue centre in Bali, she said the last time she spoke to him was on Wednesday night. "'I just got on the ship,'" she recalled him saying. "I said to him, 'be careful', dear." At 4 a.m. on Thursday, Silawati said she called him again, and again. There was no answer. Rescue operations resumed on Friday in the waters of Bali Strait involving ships, helicopters, and hundreds of rescuers, Eko said. Strong currents and rain are expected. Transportation safety investigators would probe the cause of the sinking when the search is over, officials said. The ferry was not overloaded when it went down, officials said on Thursday. Ferries are a common mode of transportation in Indonesia, a nation of over 17,000 islands, and lax safety standards allow vessels to be overcrowded with inadequate life-saving equipment.
Reuters
13 hours ago
- General
- Reuters
Indonesia resumes search for 30 missing ferry passengers
GILIMANUK, Indonesia, July 4 (Reuters) - Indonesian rescuers are battling strong currents on Friday as they resume the search for 30 people still missing at sea about 35 hours after a ferry sank killing at least six people, officials said. The ferry named KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya was carrying 65 people, all Indonesians, when it sank about 30 minutes after setting sail from East Java bound for the holiday island of Bali on Wednesday night, said search and rescue agency official Ribut Eko Suyatno. Twenty-nine survivors were rescued on Thursday before the search was called off due to poor visibility. Dayu Made Silawati, 55, said her husband, Dewa Gede Adyana Putra Usia, was travelling on the ferry to pick up supplies in Bali for his job as a truck driver. Waiting for news at a rescue centre in Bali, she said the last time she spoke to him was on Wednesday night. "'I just got on the ship,'" she recalled him saying. "I said to him, 'be careful', dear." At 4 a.m. on Thursday, Silawati said she called him again, and again. There was no answer. Rescue operations resumed on Friday in the waters of Bali Strait involving ships, helicopters, and hundreds of rescuers, Eko said. Strong currents and rain are expected. Transportation safety investigators would probe the cause of the sinking when the search is over, officials said. The ferry was not overloaded when it went down, officials said on Thursday. Ferries are a common mode of transportation in Indonesia, a nation of over 17,000 islands, and lax safety standards allow vessels to be overcrowded with inadequate life-saving equipment.
Al Arabiya
15 hours ago
- General
- Al Arabiya
Indonesian rescuers intensify search for 30 people missing after ferry sinks near Bali
Indonesian authorities intensified on Friday a search operation for 30 people missing after a ferry sank near the tourist island of Bali. The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank almost half an hour after leaving Ketapang port in East Java late Wednesday for a trip of about 5 kilometers (3 miles) to Bali's Gilimanuk port. The search and rescue operation was halted Thursday evening due to visibility problems and resumed on Friday morning with more than 160 rescuers, including police and soldiers, said Ribut Eko Suyatno, the deputy chief of operations at the National Search and Rescue Agency. Three helicopters and a thermal drone were deployed to conduct an aerial search over the waters of the Bali Strait, while about 20 vessels were mobilized for the sea search, Suyatno said. As weather forecasts predict high waves and rough waters around the Bali Strait on Friday, he said at least three navy ships to being deployed to replace small boats. Videos and photos released by the agency showed rescuers looking desperately from rescue boats in the waters, but no new survivors. The agency released the names of 29 survivors and six people confirmed dead late Thursday. It didn't release names of the missing, but according to the passenger manifest there were 30 people missing. On Friday, survivors were being treated at Bali's Jembrana Regional Hospital, while the bodies have been handed over to the families for funerals. Distraught relatives gathered at the port office in Gilimanuk hoping for news of missing family members. Indonesian authorities are investigating the cause of the accident. Survivors told rescuers there appeared to be a leak in the engine room of the ferry, which was carrying 22 vehicles, including 14 trucks. Ferry tragedies occur regularly in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with weak enforcement of safety regulations often to blame. Fifteen people were killed after a boat capsized off Indonesia's Sulawesi in 2023, while another ferry sank in rough seas near Bali in 2021 leaving seven dead and 11 missing. In 2018, an overcrowded ferry sank with about 200 people on board 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.
Washington Post
a day ago
- General
- Washington Post
At least 5 dead after ferry sinks on its way to Bali
An Indonesian ferry carrying at least 65 passengers sank in the Bali Strait Wednesday night, leaving at least five people dead and more than 30 missing, according to local reports and Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, Basarnas. The death toll is expected to rise and the exact number of passengers remains uncertain. The ferry was traveling from Ketapang Port in Banyuwangi, Jaava, to Gilimanuk in Bali, according to the Indonesian Outlet Jakarta Post. It sank less than 30 minutes into its journey at around 11:20 p.m. local time. Footage shared by Basarnas of the nighttime search operation showed rescuers using flashlights to survey the surface of the water. The search, which faced difficulties overnight due to weather conditions, continued Thursday. Basarnas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the search efforts. Survivors are receiving medical treatment and will be transported to their hometowns, I Nyoman Sidakarya, the head of Basarnas, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, told the Jakarta Post, a newspaper in Indonesia's capital. Some survivors will be accompanied by Inland Waterway and Ferry Transport Gilimanuk officials, Sidakarya said. Images from Gilimanuk showed a group of about a dozen survivors waiting to get their blood drawn while officials gathered around them. The exact number of survivors has not yet been counted. It's unclear what caused the ferry — a red-and-white vessel dubbed the Tunu Pratama Jaya — to sink. At the time of the incident, sea conditions were hazardous with high waves and severe winds, the Jakarta Post reported. 'The ferry could not be contacted via radio from the beginning. Then it could be contacted by other ships from the same company. But the ship was already in a tilting condition,' Surabaya Search and Rescue head Nanang Sigit said in a statement, the AP reported. Crowds gathering at a reunion center Thursday, waiting tensely for news of relatives. Indonesia's National Armed Forces have provided vessels, aircraft and a diving team to assist in the effort to locate the missing passengers. Kristomei Sianturi, a spokesman for the Indonesian Navy's Eastern Fleet Command, said they had deployed additional maritime resources as well, the Jakarta Post reported. Indonesia has a long history of ferry disasters on its crowded waterways. The world's fourth largest country by population, spread across more than 17,000 islands, it sees a high volume of ferry traffic, and boats are sometimes loaded with passengers beyond their official manifests.
