Rescuers searching for 140 people from Indonesian passenger ship

An Indonesian passenger ship, the Virgo Transport 8, carrying over 240 people, lost contact with authorities in the Java Sea early on Sunday while traveling from East Java to South Kalimantan province. According to the Search and Rescue Office in Banjarmasin, the ship's operator reported the incident after receiving information that the vessel had encountered bad weather. The ship's last known position was in the Java Sea, about 148 kilometers from Banjarmasin.

Rescuers have launched a search operation, deploying a team, ships, and a helicopter towards the passenger vessel's last known position. So far, 103 people have been evacuated using different ships, with one of them reported dead, according to I Putu Sudayana, the head of the Search and Rescue Office's Banjarmasin office.

The search continues for the remaining 140 people on board. The incident highlights the reliance on ferries as a key mode of transportation in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, although safety standards are not always rigorously enforced.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Sydney Morning Herald, Jerusalem Post, ABC News AU, The Guardian, ABC News (US) — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.