Rinto Arahap was asleep, like most of the people around him, when the floor of the ferry began to tilt. It was around two in the morning on Sunday, about five hours after the ship had left port, and he says he heard a sound like metal breaking. Then the shouting started. “People were panicking. Some climbed onto tables, some were pushing each other,” the 33-year-old later told AFP from a stretcher at a health facility in Banjarmasin. Nobody in a uniform told the passengers anything, he said. “There was no warning from the ship’s crew. Basically, it was just someone taking the initiative, shouting, ‘Oh, the ship is listing, listing, listing.’”
The waves were more than two metres high. As the deck went over, passengers fought each other for life jackets. Arahap managed to get one, then went into the water, and then floated for about four hours in the Java Sea before someone pulled him out. He had been travelling to Samarinda in East Kalimantan to start work on a palm oil plantation. “I didn’t save anything, just myself,” he said. “My wallet, everything... was lost. Things like my school diploma were gone. All my clothes were swept away.”
The ship was the Virgo Transport 8, built in Japan and designed to carry both passengers and vehicles. It had left Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, at 10:33 on Saturday morning, heading for Banjarmasin on the southern coast of Borneo, where it was due to arrive at about two on Sunday afternoon. On board were 213 passengers and 30 crew, as well as vehicles.
Before the ship went silent, the captain had reported rough seas with waves of up to three metres and had sent a distress message saying the vessel was listing. This is according to I Putu Sudayana, who heads the Banjarmasin Search and Rescue Office. Contact was lost at about two in the morning, and the rescue agency in Banjarmasin says it received a report two hours later. Authorities were told first that the vessel had overturned, and afterwards that it had sunk. “The ship’s operator reported the incident to authorities after receiving information that the vessel had encountered bad weather,” Sudayana said in a video briefing.
Heri Purwanto, who heads the Banjarmasin Sea Port Authority, confirmed that the ship had been carrying vehicles and that contact was lost at two. “We responded quickly to the incident report,” he said.
A rescue ship was sent towards the last known position, and because of the number of people on board, four vessels were deployed, including a navy ship, together with a helicopter. The searchers were working in the same seas that had turned the ferry over. Sudayana told reporters that crews were facing waves of up to 2.5 metres in conditions he called “extremely risky” for vessels. “Even our Basarnas vessel, which is 40 meters long, is at great risk,” he said.
The numbers changed throughout the day, as they do in an event that is still happening. By Sunday afternoon, search teams helped by nearby tugboats and other vessels had rescued 102 people and recovered one body, with about 140 missing. Later the count was 107 rescued and six bodies recovered, with roughly 130 unaccounted for. By evening, the national search and rescue agency, Basarnas, put it at six dead, 108 rescued and 129 missing.
The vessel’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 150 kilometres from its destination. It is a shallow sea between Borneo and Java, with an average depth of 46 metres.
At the pier in Banjarmasin, the first rescue ship carrying survivors arrived before nightfall. 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 were written up as they came in. Jenah, 26, was among them, looking for her older brother. Like many Indonesians, she has only one name. “I am saddened and very shocked. Until now, I haven’t received any more information,” she said. “He was travelling alone. I hope he survives. I couldn’t contact him since last night.”
Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where ferries are a common way to travel and where disasters happen regularly, often blamed on weak enforcement of safety rules. Last month at least 211 people were taken off an Indonesian ferry that caught fire in rough seas near Bali, with one dead and four missing. Less than two weeks before that, the Mutiara Sentosa 2 caught fire off Java, leaving at least five dead. Sunday’s sinking came four days after a fire destroyed a passenger ferry in the Philippines, killing at least 76 people, with more than 10 still missing.
Arahap floated for four hours in a life jacket he had grabbed himself, after a warning that no member of the crew gave. In Banjarmasin, Jenah was still watching the whiteboard.