JAKARTA, Indonesia — A passenger ferry collided with a ship believed to be carrying liquefied natural gas and sank west of Indonesia’s main island early Wednesday, killing at least eight people, officials said.
The ferry carrying more than 200 crew and passengers collided with the ship about 40 minutes into its 90-minute journey, said Heru Purwanto, an official at Bakauheni port on southern Sumatra island.
Experts were checking for gas leaks in the carrier. The collision occurred about four miles from Bakauheni in Lampung province, said Bambang Ervan, a Transportation Ministry spokesman.
“The ferry went down so fast after the collision,” Purwanto said. It sank 20 minutes after the captain sent a distress signal, enabling 10 merchant ships sailing nearby in the busy Sunda Straits to immediately start rescuing passengers and crew members, he said.
He said the manifest showed the ferry was carrying 213 passengers and crew members, as well as 78 vehicles. It has an official capacity of 300 passengers and 70 vehicles.
But manifests are often unreliable in Indonesia because tickets are sold onboard to passengers who are never registered.
Purwanto said more than 210 passengers and crew members had been rescued and eight bodies were pulled from the water, including a 10-year-old girl.
They are believed to have jumped into the sea without life jackets and could not swim, he said. More than 80 passengers were hospitalized with injuries, including at least one in critical condition.
Two helicopters and two military ships were joined by navy divers and several other search-and-rescue vessels in the hunt for survivors, said Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for the National Search and Rescue Agency.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision or whether the South African-flagged vessel carrying the liquefied natural gas was damaged.
The Bahuga Jaya ferry links Java with southern Sumatra island. It went down after departing from Merak port in Java.
Ferries are a major source of transportation in Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, with more than 17,000 islands and a population of 240 million. Sea accidents are common because of overcrowding and poor safety standards.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/27/2012