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 kilometres 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 mobilised 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.