Indonesian rescue teams are searching for 129 missing people in the Java Sea after a passenger ferry carrying over 240 individuals capsized during severe weather. At least 108 survivors have been rescued and six bodies recovered, according to officials who cited reports of three-meter waves and gale-force conditions.
Rescue operations intensified across the Java Sea following the sinking of a passenger vessel that was carrying more than 240 people during severe weather conditions. The incident prompted a coordinated multi-agency response to locate 129 passengers and crew members still unaccounted for after the ferry capsized off the coast of Java island.
Damla Delialioğlu Demirtaş and Zahir Sofuoğlu reported on September 13, 2026, that search and rescue operations began in Indonesia on Sunday following the loss of communication with a passenger ship carrying 241 people off the coast of Java island.
I Putu Sudayana, head of the Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency office, stated in a declaration that communication with the vessel—which was traveling from Surabaya in East Java province to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan province—was lost at dawn on Sunday. He explained that the vessel’s operator notified authorities about the accident after receiving information that the ship had encountered severe weather conditions, leading to the loss of contact off the coast of Java. He added that search and rescue teams were dispatched to the last location where the vessel was believed to have been, and confirmed that all resources were mobilized to find the missing persons, noting that the search is being conducted in cooperation with all relevant parties.
Vessel Route and First-Hand Reports Before Capsizing
The ill-fated ferry was traveling from Surabaya in East Java to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, situated on Borneo island. Before communication broke down, the vessel’s captain reported rough seas featuring waves reaching heights of three meters, according to officials overseeing the rescue coordination.
I Putu Sudayana, who heads the Search and Rescue Agency office in Banjarmasin, stated that the captain had reported choppy seas with waves reaching up to 3 meters before issuing a distress call, reporting that the ferry had begun to list. Authorities subsequently received information indicating that the ferry had overturned. Initial information indicated that the last known location of the ferry was in the Java Sea, approximately 148 kilometers away from Banjarmasin.
Manifest Discrepancies and Ongoing Rescue Operations
The ferry’s passenger list indicated that it was carrying 243 people—213 passengers and 30 crew members—although it is common in Indonesia for the actual number of passengers to differ from the official manifest. The ferry was also transporting 89 vehicles.
As search teams expand their perimeter around the vessel’s last known coordinates, 108 survivors have been pulled from the water while search personnel have recovered six bodies. Maritime agencies continue their ongoing search operations for at least 129 missing people following the capsizing of the ferry in bad weather in the Java Sea.
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