Rescuers searching for 140 people from Indonesia passenger ship, official says

JAKARTA, Sept 13 (Reuters) – Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday 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, a search and rescue agency official said.

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An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people was reported missing after losing contact early on Sunday during bad weather, the 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 and some of them would be taken to an East Java port.

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Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter toward the passenger vessel’s last known position, he said, without stating 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.

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(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Jamie Freed)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published September 12, 2026 at 11:33 PM.