World

Rescuers searching for 140 people from Indonesian ship

By AAP Newswire

Sep 13, 2026

Indonesia Boat Accident — Indonesian rescuers launched a search operation after the ship lost contact, -AP

Indonesian rescuers are searching for 140 people from a passenger ship that was earlier reported missing in the Java Sea, ‌after 103 others were ‌evacuated, ⁠one of whom died.

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An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people was reported missing after losing contact early on Sunday during bad weather, a search and rescue agency said.

The Virgo Transport 8 ship set sail on Saturday from ⁠the East Java city of Surabaya to ‌the South Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin before losing contact, the agency said.

I Putu Sudayana, the ‌head of the agency's Banjarmasin office, said in a video statement that 103 people had been evacuated using different ships, with some of them taken to an East Java port.

Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter toward the ‌passenger vessel's last known position, he said, without revealing what happened to the ship.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.

However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in ⁠a relatively high accident rate.