140 passengers missing after Indonesia passenger ship sinks

JAKARTA- Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday for 140 people from a passenger ship that sank in the Java Sea after 103 others were evacuated, one of whom died, a search and rescue agency official said.

An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people had been reported missing after losing contact early on Sunday during bad weather, the search and rescue agency said.

The Virgo Transport 8 ship had set sail on Saturday from the East Java city of Surabaya to the South Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin, it said.

The agency said later on Sunday the ship had sunk, without providing further details.

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.

Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter toward the passenger vessel's last known position, he said.

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.

Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Jamie Freed/Reuters