The death toll could be daunting following a ferry carrying 243 passengers capsized in severe weather in the Java Sea on Sunday, with 115 rescued but 125 still missing, according to officials and latest news reports coming out of the region.
Six people so far are confirmed dead but rescuers fear dozens could be trapped under the the 400-foot ship.
The ferry, the Virgo Transport 8, was carrying its passengers between Java and Borneo when it lost contact, authorities said.
Global Channel 24 posted videos of the rescues being made from lifeboats in the turbulent waters.
“We cannot yet determine whether the victims are still inside the vessel or whether they may be some distance away from the location of the vessel,” Dudy Purwagandhi, Indonesia’s transport minister, told reporters press in Banjarmasin, in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan province, where he was monitoring the ship’s evacuation, ABC reported.
Officials with the Directorate General of Sea Transportation said in a statement they were still working to determine the cause of the incident and whether it had been due to “natural factors, technical factors or human factors.”
The rescue effort to find survivors includes both ships and helicopters.
Rescue teams prepare to evacuate victims of the Virgo Transport 8 passenger ferry, which capsized while carrying 243 people on its route to Banjarmasin from Surabaya, at the port hall before heading to a hospital in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan on September 13, 2026.(INFUZ / AFP via Getty Images)
Indonesia has a long history of deadly maritime and ferry accidents, in part due to its reliance on water transportation between its more than 17,000 islands. Fatal accidents are exacerbated by overloading, lax enforcement of safety standards and frequent severe weather.
The latest incident follows a separate ferry fire off Madura Island last month that killed five people.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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