Indonesia says about 250 missing in ferry sinking

PARE-PARE, Indonesia (Reuters) - Nearly 250 people are still missing from an Indonesian ferry which sank in heavy seas at the weekend, officials said on Monday, as bad weather hampered rescue efforts.

A port official and a survivor told Reuters the passenger manifest might have been incomplete, raising the possibility there may have been more than the official tally of 267 on the stricken vessel.

Transport Minister Jusman Syafi'i Djamal told a news conference a preliminary investigation showed the 10-year-old boat capsized on Sunday after it was battered by waves in eastern Indonesia.

The meteorology agency had warned of bad weather in the area but Djamal said port authorities had given the ferry the go-ahead to leave and conditions were clear when it left.

"We will investigate thoroughly why the captain decided to go," the minister said. A ministry spokesman said that 23 survivors had been found so far, while 244 were missing.

Indonesia's aging transport system has been plagued by a spate of disasters in recent years including ferry and air accidents.

The ferry, which had 250 passengers and 17 crew according to the manifest, was traveling from Pare-Pare on the west coast of Sulawesi island to Samarinda city on Indonesia's side of Borneo island when it ran into bad weather on Sunday.

An official on Sulawesi quoted survivors as saying the ferry rolled over and sank after being hit by waves of more than 5 meters (16 feet) in the early hours of Sunday.

One survivor, Daeng Gassing, who spoke as several sobbing relatives comforted him, said he had managed to scramble onto a life raft after clinging to a piece of wood and had pulled five others to safety but his son and father-in-law were missing.

"I grabbed my son on my back and swam to a piece of wood, but my son disappeared after being hit by a big wave," he said.

Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry's crisis center, said that six deaths had been confirmed.

Taufik Bulu, head of maritime safety in Pare-Pare, said more people may have died than expected because many would have been asleep when the disaster struck.

Data on passengers using Indonesian ferries is notoriously unreliable and survivor Gassing said he was not on the manifest.

"I was not in the list of passengers because I bought the ticket on the ferry," he told Reuters.

Bulu, who said the manifest was based on 200 tickets reported sold by a ticket seller and 50 other names added just before the ferry left, said it was possible latecomers may have bought tickets on the ferry.

RESCUE EFFORTS

Ferries are vital in the world's fourth-most populous country, which has more than 17,000 islands spanning a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from Ireland to Iran.

But accidents are common largely because of under-investment in infrastructure and a tendency to overload the boats.

The transport minister denied the ferry had been overloaded.

A senior official said the captain was not able to switch on a general alarm to warn passengers when the disaster struck.

The rescue effort, which involved aircraft and ships, was delayed on Monday due to bad weather, said search and rescue head, Ida Bagus Sanubari, before resuming later.

In Pare-Pare, a Reuters photographer saw a transport ministry ship loaded with body bags depart for the search area.

In the port, a group of about 100 people thronged around a list of passengers, some fainting and appearing hysterical, while in Samarinda, desperate relatives awaited news.

"We heard two more people had been rescued. Hopefully, one of them is my family member," Arifin Abdul Hafid told Metro TV.

Indonesia has come under pressure in recent years to improve its transportation sector following several serious accidents.

On December 30, 2006, a ferry with at least 600 onboard sank in a storm after it travelled between Borneo and Java island. About 250 survivors were found in the days after the accident.

A couple of months later at least 42 people were killed when fire broke out aboard a ferry that was heading from Jakarta to Bangka island off Sumatra.

There have also been accidents involving airlines, prompting the European Union to ban Indonesian carriers from its airspace.

(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia and Olivia Rondonuwu in Jakarta; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Dean Yates)