Three Bodies of KMP Virgo Victims Successfully Evacuated from Shipwreck
The joint search and rescue (SAR) team successfully evacuated the bodies of three victims of the KMP Virgo Transport 8 accident from the ship’s hull on Friday (18/9).
The three victims consist of two men and one woman. The bodies were located and evacuated from within the underwater hull during the afternoon, and at approximately 18:30 WITA, they were transferred to the KN SAR Kamajaya for transport to Trisakti Port, Banjarmasin.
“Through hard work, high expertise, and careful risk assessment amidst limited visibility and dynamic underwater currents, the diving team successfully evacuated three victims trapped within the ship’s hull structure,” stated the Banjarmasin SAR Office via their social media account.
“The three evacuated victims were immediately attended to by medical teams aboard the SAR vessel before being transferred to the land-based command post for further handling and identification by the DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) Team.”
The three bodies from the KMP Virgo, evacuated from the ship’s hull, arrived at Trisakti Port, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, at approximately 23:00 WITA on Friday night.
Basarnas and the joint team subsequently handed the three bodies over to the Indonesian National Police (Polri) DVI Team at Trisakti Port for further medical processing and identification.
“The three victims were found trapped inside a room within the ship, requiring the diving team to break glass to extract the bodies from the interior of the vessel,” said the Director of Operations at Basarnas, Rear Admiral TNI Yudhi Bramastyo Nur Sasongko.
The specialised diving operation involved two teams from the Indonesian Navy (TNI AL), including 10 personnel from the Navy Special Forces (Kopaska) and 10 personnel from the Underwater Rescue Service (Dislambair) of the TNI AL Koarmada II.
With the discovery of these three bodies, as of the sixth day of the SAR operation on Friday at 22:00 WITA, Basarnas confirmed that 117 victims have been found, consisting of 108 survivors and nine fatalities. Meanwhile, 126 individuals remain missing from the total of 243 people listed on the KMP Virgo Transport 8 manifest.
KMP Virgo Transport 8 was carrying 243 people when it departed from Surabaya, East Java, bound for Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, on 12 September 2026.
The vessel was reported to have encountered severe weather and lost contact on 13 September 2026 at approximately 02:00 WITA, before being discovered later that same day capsized in the Masalembo waters, Java Sea.