Motorboat missing with 37 people on board

PALU, Central Sulawesi (JP): As many as 30 passengers and seven crew members were reported missing and feared dead when the motorized sailing boat Lestari Abadi carrying them from Wani Port in Palu to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, in June never reached its destination.

The vessel -- which was authorized to transport goods -- was owned by a man identified as Saini. The boat set sail from Wani Port at 11 p.m. on June 18 and should have arrived at the port in Balikpapan on June 21.

Reports on the ill-fated ship surfaced only on Monday when relatives of some of the passengers went to the Central Sulawesi legislative council to demand information about the missing vessel.

Three of the relatives, Kadir, Darso and Weli Lanake, told a member of the council's Commission A, Muhlis Agung, that the legislature was their last resort after their questions to the Wani Port authority went unanswered for more than a month.

"I cannot believe that the port authority remained silent about the fate of that many people," Muhlis said after meeting with the three.

The head of the port, Sumadji, denied the allegations on Tuesday, saying he had ordered his men to search for the missing ship soon after the vessel's owner reported in June that it had failed to arrive in Balikpapan.

With no publicity, Sumadji said he sent two teams of searchers into the waters around Tolitoli regency. "The teams returned without any results."

"Now a third team is tracing the route of the ship in the waters of eastern Malaysian and the southern Philippines. We are waiting for a report from the third team," said Sumadji.

He said the Lestari Abadi was carrying 129 cows, 100 goats, three tons of corn and three tons of rice when it left Wani Port.

"Tamrin, the captain, did not report the number of people on board," Sumadji said, confirming that the vessel was not a passenger ship.

The head of the Central Sulawesi provincial office of the Ministry of Communications, M. Suseba, said on Tuesday he was shocked when a legislator phoned him to ask about the missing vessel.

"We deeply regret this incident. Why didn't the port authority report to us about the ship? I believe that the port authority thought that he was not obliged to report such a fatal accident to the provincial level." (24/sur)