Indonesia hunts 129 missing after Virgo Transport 8 capsizes in the Java Sea

Indonesian search crews spent Monday working the Java Sea off Masalembo for 129 people still missing after the passenger ferry Virgo Transport 8 overturned in three-metre waves early on Sunday. Rescuers had already taken 108 people off the hull and recovered six bodies. The ship’s manifest listed 243 people: 213 passengers and 30 crew. It was also carrying 89 vehicles on the regular overnight run from Surabaya, in East Java, to Banjarmasin, the South Kalimantan port on Borneo.

The captain reported a heavy list to starboard at about 2 a.m. local time on 13 September and then dropped off the radio. A passing helicopter confirmed the 119-metre vessel, built in Japan in 1987, was upside down in the water about 148 kilometres from its destination. Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi told reporters the ship had capsized. I Putu Sudayana, who heads the Banjarmasin search and rescue office, said the first distress notice reached authorities around 4:10 a.m. from the operator, PT Virgo.

The passenger list itself tells a story about how this route works. Officials later broke the 213 passengers into 59 adults, one child and 126 drivers and vehicle assistants, plus 27 people attached to the ship’s own work. Freight drivers sleep in corridors when cabins fill. Ahmad Saudi, a survivor, told Associated Press that the ferry looked overcrowded and that many people had been forced to lie down in hallways. Rinto Arahap, 33, told AFP that passengers were asleep when the list began. He said he heard what sounded like metal breaking about five hours into the voyage. People climbed onto tables. Others pushed for life jackets.

Rinto later described clinging to railings after the hull rolled, then climbing to a higher point as the wreck tossed in the swell. Another passenger, a freight driver named Ahmad, was taken off by the passing ship MV Haida. At Trisakti Port in Banjarmasin, survivors arrived on stretchers and in wheelchairs. Families crowded the command post to read the manifest. In Surabaya, at Tanjung Perak, relatives of crew members waited as well. One man, Fredy, said his youngest sibling, Stevie Manuhua, worked on board as a keyboard player for passengers.

Putri, who gave only her first name, told Reuters she had been on the phone with her husband Herman when the call dropped. She could not reach him again. Those scenes repeated through Sunday night and into Monday as the National Search and Rescue Agency released video of an overturned ferry in choppy water during a helicopter pass. Nearby tugboats and other commercial ships joined the official boats. Basarnas official Syafii said in a video briefing that crews still hoped to find more people alive.

Indonesian passenger counts often diverge from the paper manifest. Officials said so again on Monday. That uncertainty matters because the arithmetic of 243 minus 108 survivors minus six recovered bodies leaves 129 unaccounted for only if the list is complete. Search planners treat the number as a working figure, not a census. Weather in the Java Sea overnight Saturday into Sunday produced waves of about three metres, or ten feet. Investigators have not said whether the cause was the sea state, a mechanical failure, a shift of vehicles on the car deck, or some mix of those.

The route itself is ordinary and heavily used. Ferries and landing-craft style ships move people, motorcycles and trucks between Java and Kalimantan every day. Virgo Transport 8 left Surabaya at 10:33 a.m. on Saturday and was due in Banjarmasin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, according to two maritime tracking services cited by the BBC. Its last reported position sat roughly 150 kilometres south of the destination. Heri Purwanto, head of the Banjarmasin Sea Port Authority, said the port lost contact at 2 a.m. and that staff moved as soon as the operator called.

Indonesia has a long record of ferry losses in the same waters and in the nearby Sunda and Bali straits. Overloading, ageing hulls and sudden weather remain the usual ingredients. This ship was 39 years old. The investigation will have to settle whether the car deck was lashed, whether the list started from a vehicle shift, and whether the captain’s last report of a starboard tilt matches damage found on the wreck. Police also continued a separate search in the Sunda Strait for eight people, including five journalists, missing after a speedboat vanished during coverage of Anak Krakatoa. That case is not connected, but it left the same agencies stretched across two seas on the same weekend.

For families in Surabaya and Banjarmasin the next days turn on identification and on how long Basarnas keeps boats on station. The six recovered bodies will go through formal identification. The 108 people already ashore need medical checks and statements. The missing 129, if the manifest holds, include drivers who were only crossing with their trucks and a musician who was not on any freight list. The Java Sea does not give wrecks back quickly once weather closes in. Monday’s search was the first full daylight pass. What it finds will set the tone for the rest of the week.