SAR team rescues five passengers from boat missing in Banggai waters

Palu (ANTARA) – A joint search-and-rescue team has evacuated five passengers from a motorboat that had lost contact in the waters of Banggai Laut Regency, Central Sulawesi. All five were found safe.

“Teams in the field managed to find and evacuate all the passengers safely,” said Moh Rizal, head of the Palu Search and Rescue Office, in Palu on Friday.

He said the five were passengers on the Rembulan motorboat, which lost contact while travelling from Toropot Village to Tolokibit Village, in South Banggai District, Banggai Laut Regency, on Tuesday (13 October).

The passengers were Rikandi Bardi, 42, Rudding, 34, Rusia, 41, Khalisa, 3, and Rilan, 5.

Their supplies and fuel were running low, while their mobile phones had run out of battery, leaving them unreachable.

“The families, together with local residents and fishermen, then began searching before the Search and Rescue team received information about the incident on Wednesday (14 October) at 13:08 Central Indonesian Time,” he said.

On the second day of the search, Thursday (15 October), the team added to its SAR resources by deploying the KN SAR Bhisma vessel to strengthen the search and rescue effort.

At 22:37, the SAR team received information from a pajeko fishing boat that the Rembulan and its five passengers were at a fish-aggregating device in the area.

“The joint SAR team found the passengers at around 01:17 on Friday (16 October),” Rizal said.

The five were then taken to Luwuk Harbour to be handed over to their families.

The operation involved the Balut SAR standby unit rescue team, Luwuk SAR post, crew of the KN SAR Bhisma, Banggai Laut Police, Babinsa military officers, the Banggai Laut Regional Disaster Management Agency, the passengers’ families, and local residents and fishermen.

“With all the passengers found, the SAR operation was declared complete. We thank all those who took part in the search and rescue operation,” he said.