6 dead as fishing boat sinks in Indonesia

At least six people were killed and seven others were missing after a fishing boat capsized off the southeastern coast of Indonesia's Java island on Thursday, officials said.

The boat overturned in the morning due to strong waves when it was about to dock at a beach in Puger in East Java, National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement cited by Efe news.

Footage distributed by the NDMA showed the boat shaking in strong waves and eventually capsizing. Sutopo said that the National Search and Rescue Agency was working to locate the missing people.

In the last two months, almost 200 people have died in two maritime accidents, after a ferry capsized in the Toba lake in Sumatra and another off the southern coast of the Celebes island.

Maritime accidents are common in Indonesia due largely to poor infrastructure, overloading of passengers and goods, poor enforcement of and compliance with security norms and bad weather.

Ferries are one of the main modes of transport in the Indonesian archipelago, which comprises 17,000 islands and has a population of around 260 million.

--IANS

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