At least 21 people were killed and five were missing after an Indonesian ferry carrying scores of wedding revellers capsized in rough seas, officials said yesterday.
There were 180 passengers aboard the Beringin Jaya when the boat flipped over on Thursday off the remote island of Kabaruang between Indonesia's Sulawesi island and the Philippines, Tahuna District Naval Base official Captain Zulkarnain said.
He said the latest information was "150 people survived, 21 were found dead, five are still missing, and four are being treated at a local hospital."
Police and navy estimates of the number on board had earlier ranged between 200 and 300.
"There were so many people on that boat, and many people jumped on even way after the ticket booth was closed," said Captain Alamsyah, a spokesman at the main North Sulawesi naval base in Manado city.
One navy source said a large party on board was going to a wedding on Kabaruang island, and that the boat capsized due to over-crowding.
Kabaruang is in the Sangihe Talaud archipelago, about 2,500km northeast of Jakarta.
A huge number of ferries ply the waters of Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, and accidents, often caused by overcrowding or bad weather, occur periodically.
The number of passengers a ferry is registered to carry is often much less than the actual number on board.
The worst boat accident in recent years in Indonesia took place in June 2000 when an overcrowded vessel carrying almost 500 passengers, mostly refugees fleeing sectarian violence, sank in bad weather. Only 10 survived.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS