Search for 129 people after Virgo Transport 8 capsizes in the Java Sea

Basarnas, Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, was still looking on Monday for 129 people after the passenger ferry Virgo Transport 8 overturned in the Java Sea on Sunday. Six bodies have been recovered. One hundred and eight people have been taken alive to Trisakti Port in Banjarmasin.

The ship's manifest listed 243 people: 213 passengers and 30 crew. It also listed 89 vehicles. The passenger breakdown given by officials included 59 adult fare-paying passengers, one child, 126 drivers and vehicle assistants, and 27 workers attached to the ship. Indonesian manifests often undercount. Officials have not closed that possibility.

Virgo Transport 8 left Tanjung Perak in Surabaya, East Java, at 10.33 a.m. on Saturday. It was due in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, at 2 p.m. on Sunday. The last known position was in the Masalembo waters, about 148 kilometres from Banjarmasin and roughly 150 kilometres from the planned arrival port, around 2 a.m. local time. The captain reported waves of up to three metres and a heavy list to starboard. Contact with the operator, PT Virgo, dropped at that hour. A distress report reached authorities at 4.10 a.m. A passing helicopter later confirmed that the hull was upside down in choppy water.

I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin search-and-rescue office, said rescue ships had to work in waves of about 2.5 metres. By Monday, Basarnas said 622 personnel were on the water and in the air, using 17 vessels and five aircraft, including navy ships and helicopters. Divers and navy underwater drones were being prepared to look around and inside the overturned hull. Strong currents were slowing that work.

Survivor Rinto Arahap, 33, told AFP that many passengers were asleep when the list began. He said he heard what sounded like metal breaking about five hours into the journey. People climbed onto tables. Some pushed for life jackets. Families waited at Trisakti Port through Sunday night while the first survivors came ashore to a temporary medical post.

The Java Sea is shallow, averaging about 46 metres, and it is one of Indonesia's busiest domestic ferry corridors. The Surabaya to Banjarmasin run moves people, motorcycles, trucks and market goods between Java and southern Borneo. Overloading, night departures and weather that arrives faster than a ship's routing can change have produced repeated losses on this route and on neighbouring crossings. Officials have not yet issued a formal finding on load, stability or the decision to sail after the wave warning.

Heri Purwanto, head of the Banjarmasin Sea Port Authority, said the port office moved as soon as the operator reported the loss of contact. Nearby tugboats and passing ships joined the first lifts. Videos released by Basarnas on Sunday showed the white underside of a ferry sitting in grey water while a helicopter circled.

The Ministry of Transportation confirmed the ship had capsized rather than sunk outright. That distinction matters for the search. An inverted hull can trap air and, in some past Indonesian cases, living people. It can also trap bodies. Divers will not enter until the sea state drops. Monday's forecast did not offer a long quiet window.

Numbers shifted through Sunday as separate agencies counted survivors. Early BBC figures put rescues at 97. Later Basarnas tallies settled on 108 rescued and six dead, leaving 129 unaccounted for against the 243 on the paper list. Al Jazeera at one point carried 130 missing and 107 rescued. The desk is using the Monday Basarnas figures.

Indonesia's ferry fleet is a mix of state operator ASDP ships and private vessels such as Virgo Transport 8. Private ships often take the overnight vehicle runs. Weather routing is supposed to sit with the master and the company. The meteorological warning for three-metre waves was already in circulation when the ship left Java. Whether that warning reached the bridge as a binding instruction, or only as advice, will be one of the first questions in the transport ministry inquiry.

For families in Surabaya and Banjarmasin the immediate problem is narrower. They need names, not a stability lecture. Basarnas said the search box remains centred on Masalembo. Ships in the Java Sea have been asked to report debris, life jackets and anyone in the water. The next useful update will be a verified passenger list reconciled against the people already ashore.