Virgo Transport 8 lists in the Java Sea; 6 dead and 140 still missing

Six people are confirmed dead and 140 remain missing after the Indonesian ro-ro ferry Virgo Transport 8 lost contact in the Java Sea at about 02:00 on Sunday, according to Basarnas, the national search and rescue agency.

The ship, 8,540 gross tons and flying the Indonesian flag, left Tanjung Perak in Surabaya on Saturday bound for Trisakti port in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. The official manifest listed 243 people: 30 crew, 27 ship personnel, 59 adult passengers, one child, and 126 drivers and assistants travelling with 89 vehicles. Captain Arief Yunianto was in command. The operator is PT Virgo Karya Shipping.

Heri Purwanto, head of the Class I harbour master's office in Banjarmasin, said the first report described extreme listing near the Masalembo waters. The last plotted position was about 150 kilometres, or 81 nautical miles, south of Banjarmasin. PT Virgo alerted the authorities at 04:10. A joint task force of Basarnas, the navy, maritime police and commercial ships was stood up before dawn.

Three passing vessels did most of the early work. The tug TB Mauhaw IX took 16 people, including one body. The tug TB TCP, operated by PT Transcoal Pacific, took 38, including five bodies. The cargo ship MV Haida, run by the same group as the ferry, took 49, all alive. I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin search and rescue office and mission coordinator, told a noon briefing that 103 people had been pulled from the water by 12:00 Central Indonesian Time. Six of them were dead. The later Basarnas tally put survivors at 97.

Sudayana said the captain had reported that the ship was tilting before the radio went silent. Waves of about 2.5 metres were running across the search box. He told reporters that even the 40-metre Basarnas vessel on station was at risk. A helicopter and additional surface units were sent to the last known position. All other traffic in that part of the Java Sea was told to watch for people in the water.

The survivors were split between two ports. Sixteen evacuees, including one of the dead, were directed to Tuban. The other 87 were bound for Trisakti in Banjarmasin, where a crisis post was opened at the Bandarmasih passenger terminal and families gathered under a whiteboard of names. Hospitals in the city were placed on alert.

Departure times in the public record do not all match. Maritime tracking sites had the ship leaving at 10:33 on Saturday with a scheduled Sunday arrival at 14:00. A transport ministry account put the Surabaya departure at 06:52. The destination and the 02:00 loss of contact are consistent across Basarnas, the harbour master and the operator.

Indonesia moves people and freight between its 17,000 islands by sea because the road and air networks cannot. Ro-ro ferries of this class carry trucks as well as families. Overloading, weather and weak maintenance have produced a long accident list. The cause of this sinking has not been declared. Officials said they are looking at the weather and at possible technical failure. That is a statement of process, not a finding.

The arithmetic on Sunday afternoon was blunt. Of 243 people, 97 were known to be alive, six were dead, and 140 had not been found. The Java Sea is shallow by ocean standards and busy with traffic. It is also wide enough that a person in the water at night, in two-metre waves, is easy to miss. The search continues because the numbers leave no other choice.