Rescuers searching for 140 people from Indonesia passenger ship, official says

An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people was reported missing after losing contact 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 ‌before ⁠losing contact, the agency said.

I Putu Sudayana, the head of the agency's Banjarmasin office, said in a video statement that 103 people had been evacuated using different ships and some of them would be taken to ⁠an East Java port.

Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter toward the passenger vessel's last known position, he said, without ⁠stating what happened to the ship.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with ⁠sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.

However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in a relatively high accident rate.