Virgo Transport 8 Vessel Tipped Rapidly Without Alarm Before Sinking

Banjarmasin (ANTARA) - The Virgo Transport 8 vessel suddenly tilted to the left very rapidly at approximately 01:20 WITA without any alarm or prior notice before ultimately sinking, according to the testimony of survivor Ahmad Saudi.

Ahmad recounted that he was sleeping on a sofa when he heard a passenger running and announcing that the ship was tilting, prompting him to stand up and witness the vessel’s instability before attempting to save himself.

“I asked, ‘What is it, sir?’, and was told the ship was tilting. I stood up and saw it was indeed tilting. I immediately ran downstairs,” said Ahmad, when interviewed at the emergency medical service centre for victims of the Virgo Transport 8 accident at Trisakti Port, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, on Sunday night.

“I held onto a window pole as the ship tilted, tilted, and tilted. I kept holding on. After the tilting, I climbed up and waited for the ship to sink,” he added.

Ahmad subsequently rescued himself using a rubber dinghy as the ship continued to sink, and waited with other passengers in the darkness of the sea for assistance from arriving rescue vessels.

He stated that there were 15 people in the rubber dinghy with him, all of whom were successfully evacuated to a rescue ship; the group consisted entirely of men, with no female passengers present.

“There were 15 people in the rubber dinghy. We survived and were able to board the rescue ship. Most were men; there were no women,” he said.

According to Ahmad, the sea conditions while in the rubber dinghy were quite severe, as strong winds and large waves continuously battered the boat for approximately three hours, forcing them to endure the elements until help arrived.

“The waves were felt inside the boat. In the rubber dinghy alone, we were hit by waves for three hours. The wind and waves were large and high,” he remarked.

He noted that the ship had been swaying due to the impact of the waves, but the tilting occurred extremely rapidly as the hull shifted to the left, leading him to choose to hold on to maintain his balance.

“The ship just tilted. The tilt was very fast because the position shifted directly to the left,” he said.

He admitted he did not know the exact condition of all the passengers who remained in the cabins when the ship began to tilt, but based on his observations, the number of people who managed to reach the rubber dinghy appeared to be mostly men.

“There were many. It seemed like many, because those who came out seemed to be just drivers, only men. Those in the cabins likely could not get out yet,” he said.

Ahmad is a resident of Surabaya currently living in Banjarbaru, and was travelling to bring a bus unit to Kalimantan after collecting it from Surabaya, before becoming one of the passengers to successfully escape the incident.

Basarnas has confirmed preliminary data showing that 107 passengers have been saved and successfully evacuated, six people have died, while 130 others are still in the process of being searched for.

Basarnas has deployed 15 sea and air assets from a joint task force to maximise the search process at the incident site in the Masalembo waters, Java Sea, including 11 ships, one helicopter, and three aircraft.