Rinto Arahap was asleep, like most of the people around him, when the floor of the ferry started to tilt. It was about two in the morning on Sunday, around five hours after the ship left port. He says he heard a sound like metal breaking. Then people began to shout. He told AFP later, from a stretcher at a health centre in Banjarmasin, that people were panicking. Some climbed onto tables and some pushed each other. Nobody from the crew told them anything, he said. Someone simply started shouting that the ship was listing, which means leaning to one side.
The waves were more than two metres high. Passengers fought each other for life jackets as the deck turned over. Arahap got one, and then he went into the water. He floated for about four hours in the Java Sea before someone pulled him out. He was travelling to Samarinda in East Kalimantan to start work on a palm oil plantation. “I didn’t save anything, just myself,” he said. His wallet, his school diploma and all his clothes were gone.
The ship was the Virgo Transport 8, built in Japan to carry both passengers and vehicles. It left Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, at 10:33 on Saturday morning. It was going to Banjarmasin, on the southern coast of Borneo, and it was expected to arrive at about two on Sunday afternoon. There were 213 passengers and 30 crew on board, as well as vehicles.
Before the ship went silent, the captain reported rough seas with waves up to three metres and sent a message saying the ship was leaning. This is what I Putu Sudayana, the head of the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office, told reporters. Contact was lost at about two in the morning, and the rescue agency received a report two hours later. Authorities were then told that the ship had turned over, and later that it had sunk.
Because so many people were on board, rescue teams were sent out with four ships, including a navy ship, and a helicopter. They had to work in the same sea that had turned the ferry over. Sudayana said the crews faced waves of up to 2.5 metres, and he called the conditions “extremely risky” for ships. He added that even their own 40-metre rescue vessel was in great danger.
The numbers changed all day. By Sunday afternoon, rescue teams helped by nearby tugboats had saved 102 people and found one body, and about 140 people were missing. By the evening, the rescue agency said six people were dead, 108 had been rescued and 129 were still missing. The ship’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 150 kilometres from Banjarmasin.
At the pier in Banjarmasin, the first rescue ship with survivors arrived before dark. A command centre had been set up at the port, with paramedics and ambulances waiting. Dozens of relatives and friends stood in front of a whiteboard, where the names of the rescued people were written as they arrived. Jenah, 26, was there, looking for her older brother. Like many Indonesians, she has only one name. “I am saddened and very shocked,” she said. Her brother was travelling alone, and she had not been able to contact him since the night before. She hoped he had survived.
Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands, and ferries are a common way to travel there. Accidents happen often, and weak safety rules are frequently blamed. Last month at least 211 people were taken off a ferry that caught fire near Bali. Sunday’s sinking also came four days after a ferry fire in the Philippines killed at least 76 people.
Arahap floated for four hours with a life jacket he found himself, after a warning that no crew member gave. In Banjarmasin, Jenah was still watching the whiteboard.