Local police said 23 survivors had been pulled from the water so far after a ferry sank on its way to the resort island of Bali on Thursday, leaving at least five people dead and 30 missing.
The ship carrying 65 passengers sank before midnight on Wednesday while sailing to the well-liked vacation spot from Indonesia’s main island of Java, and rescuers were still scrambling to locate the missing.
Rama Samtama Putra, the police chief of Banyuwangi, East Java, where the boat departed, told AFP, “23 rescued, 4 dead.”
Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement Thursday that President Prabowo Subianto, who was traveling to Saudi Arabia, had ordered an immediate emergency reaction.
