Indonesian rescuers found alive on Tuesday, 11 people disappeared at sea who had survived a capshaft boat by swimming for at least six hours on the nearest island, officials said.
Two boats and dozens of rescuers chased away from the disappeared after the boat with 18 on board overturned the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra around 11 a.m. on Monday, regional officials announced on Monday.
“It was raining hard when the incident occurred,” Rinto Wardana told Rinto Wardana. “Some passengers have managed to swim and reach the nearest island.”
Seven had been rescued earlier, Wardana added. Ten of the people on board were representatives of the local government during a business trip to the city of Tuapejat, the destination of the boat when she left Sikakap, another small town in the Mentawai Islands.
The Mentawai Islands are made up of four main islands and many small smaller ones.
Boats and ferries are a regular mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where accidents are caused by bad weather and lax safety standards which often allow ships to be overloaded.
When a ferry sank this month near the Bali tourist vacation island with 65 on board, 30 passengers survived, while 18 years old died and 17 have disappeared.
