Rescuers search for 130 people after Indonesia passenger ship flipped; 6 dead, govt says

Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday for 130 people from a passenger ship that sank in the Java Sea after 113 others were evacuated, the country’s search and rescue agency said, adding that six people had died. An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people, including 30 crew members, was reported missing after losing contact with authorities early on Sunday during bad weather, the search and rescue agency said. The Virgo Transport 8 ship set sail on Saturday from the East Java city of Surabaya to the South Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin, it said.

Later on Sunday, the agency said six people died after rescuers found 107 people safe, while 130 others remained missing. At a press conference on Sunday, Dudy Purwagandhi, Indonesia’s transport minister, said the ship had flipped and had not sunk, citing observations from the crew of a helicopter, adding that the incident’s cause awaits further investigation. The search-and-rescue agency earlier said the ship had sunk. I Putu Sudayana, the head of the agency’s Banjarmasin office, said in a video statement that evacuees had been transported using different ships and some of them would be taken to an East Java port. Rescuers launched a…