At least 15 people were killed after a wooden boat sank off the coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, search and rescue officials said, adding that all missing passengers had been accounted for.
The boat sank with 48 people onboard just after midnight (1700 GMT on Sunday), the local office of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said in a statement.
Six people were rescued and taken to hospital for treatment, it added, and the cause of the sinking was being investigated.
Muhamad Arafah, head of the local search and rescue agency in Kendari city in Southeast Sulawesi, said in the statement that the 27 other passengers had been accounted for and all the victims had been identified.
The agency had earlier reported that 19 were missing
and that search efforts were ongoing, but Arafah said the operation had now been “declared finished and closed”.
The boat was crossing a bay between the villages of Lanto and Lagili in Central Buton regency on Muna island, said local rescue office spokesperson Wahyudin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
The spokesman told AFP the passengers had previously been recorded as missing because they had “rescued themselves, and once they got on land, they went home”. — AFP
