Maluku governor orders raising of ferry wreckage

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina has submitted a request for equipment needed to enable the local naval base to raise the Masohi Star in order to recover the bodies of 60 people believed to have been trapped on board the ill-fated ferry.

"I had been told by the naval base chief, Col. Buyung Lalana, that the base has limited equipment, especially for diving past 30 meters, while the ship is estimated to be lying at a depth of 100 meters," he told Antara.

He is seeking assistance from government agencies, which have the equipment to bring the wreck to the water's surface, he said.

The 30-ton ship, owned by PT Sumber Rejeki in Ambon, sank only minutes after departing from the Slamet Riyadi port in Ambon. It was bound for Masohi on Seram Island with about 200 passengers on board. More than 130 passengers survived the disaster, but only five bodies have been recovered.

Col. Buyung Lalana, the commander of the naval base in Ambon, said rescuers had plucked 137 survivors from the vessel that went down on Sunday night, several hundred meters away from the harbor.

Most of the survivors, along with the five bodies, were taken aboard the fishing boats or naval ships that converged on the area after the accident. Several dozen passengers swam to shore, naval officers said.

Authorities believe that the boat -- which was on its way to Seram island, about 150 kilometers to the northeast of Ambon -- was carrying up to 200 people.

The search has been complicated by the lack of records about the exact number of people on board at the time of the accident. The crew, who were arrested after they were plucked from the water, said the boat was carrying only 125 people.

"The rescue team, consisting of police and military divers, are still looking for the remaining passengers," AP quoted Lalana as saying.

He said efforts would be made to lift the wreck, which was lying at a depth of more than 100 meters. An attempt to use anchors from fishing boats to pry open the sunken ferry in search of bodies was unsuccessful, he said.

Most of the passengers on the inter-island ferry were believed to be heading home to Seram for this week's start of the holy fasting month of Ramadhan.

The sinking was the latest in a string of shipping accidents here, where much traveling is done by boat.

In June 2000, nearly 500 people drowned when a ferry sank off the coast of Sulawesi. A year ago, 374 people, mostly asylum- seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq, died when a refugee boat sank en route from Lampung to Australia via the Indian Ocean.