Search for 'Cahaya Bahari' ends

JAKARTA (JP): After a three-week search, the National Search and Rescue Agency on Thursday halted their efforts to locate the 550 passengers from the Cahaya Bahari, which sank on June 29 in the Siau waters near North Sulawesi's Sangihe Talaud regency.

"We will officially end the search at 12 a.m. on July 20. All four (search) ships will continue their efforts until this time and I will stay until midnight to monitor the situation," Udiyanto, the head of the Manado Port Administration, told The Jakarta Post by phone on Thursday.

"To be honest, the chance of finding survivors is very slim. We can only hope for a miracle. Theoretically it is almost impossible for humans to survive in such a rough sea, which is also infested with sharks, for more than a week," Udiyanto said.

The ship was carrying a total of 561 people, mostly refugees from strife-torn Tobelo district in North Maluku, and hundreds of sacks of copra when it encountered bad weather and capsized.

Udiyanto also said that no signs of the wreckage had been found. "However, we have urged all vessels plying the route to report to us if they find anything."

Eleven of the passengers were found by rescue teams wearing life vests and clinging to wreckage after spending three nights and four days in the sea. One of the passengers later died.

The wooden-hulled vessel, which left the port of Tobelo on June 28 and was bound for Manado, was licensed to carry 270 people.

Officials have not ruled out the possibility that some survivors may have been rescued by foreign vessels.

"It was reported that some victims were saved and taken to the Philippines. But so far no official report has been submitted to the search and rescue agency," Udiyanto said.

This is one of the worst sea accidents in Indonesian history, and the worst since the Tampomas II sank off Masalembo, northeast of Madura island, on Jan. 25, 1981. That accident left 436 people dead. (edt)