Rescue teams in Indonesia were searching on Monday for 129 people who were unaccounted for after a passenger ferry sank in the Java Sea, killing at least six people, the authorities said.
Another 108 people had been rescued as of Monday morning, according to Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.
The ferry, the Virgo Transport-8, sank on Sunday while traveling to the island of Borneo from Surabaya, a major city on Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. It was carrying 213 passengers and 30 crew members, the authorities said.
The ferry’s last reported position was about 93 miles south of the city of Banjarmasin around 2 a.m. Sunday, before officials lost contact with the vessel as it encountered rough seas, according to the authorities.
Survivors told rescue officials that waves had washed into the ferry before it sank, Air Marshal Mohammad Syafii, the agency’s chief, said at a news conference on Monday. He said the cause of the sinking remained under investigation.
Search teams deployed aircraft and boats to look for survivors, and several other ships were providing assistance.
Dudy Purwagandhi, Indonesia’s transportation minister, said the ferry had not been overloaded. The vessel had capacity for about 500 passengers, he said.
Ferries are a widespread form of transportation in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. Ferry accidents are common there.
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