KUALA LUMPUR and LONDON — A ferry carrying scores of people capsized in severe weather in the Java Sea on Sunday, leaving at least six people dead and 130 others unaccounted, local officials said.
The ship, the Virgo Transport 8, was carrying 243 people between Java and Borneo when it lost contact, officials said. At least 107 of those on board had been safely evacuated.
“We cannot yet determine whether the victims are still inside the vessel or whether they may be some distance away from the location of the vessel,” Dudy Purwagandhi, Indonesia’s transport minister, told reporters during a press conference in Banjarmasin, in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan province, where he was monitoring the ship’s evacuation.
People look for the names of their family members on a passenger list after a ferry overturned in bad weather in the Java Sea, at the rescuers command center in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Indonesia, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026.
Iman Satria/AP Photo
Officials with the Directorate General of Sea Transportation said in a statement that they were still working to determine the cause of the incident and whether it had been due to “natural factors, technical factors or human factors.”
Ships and a helicopter have been deployed to search for survivors, officials said.
Rescuers work during a search operation after the Virgo Transport 8 ship sank while sailing from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, in the Java Sea, Indonesia, September 13, 2026. Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.
Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency via Reuters
A video released by the National Search and Rescue Agency, BASARNAS, showed what appeared to be survivors in orange life-rafts being rescued from the sea. Another video showed those others who had been rescued on board another ship receiving first aid.
The incident follows a separate ferry fire off Madura Island last month that killed five people.