According to an article published in TRT World and Jakarta Post, the 190-meter vessel traveling from Halmahera island to Sulawesi island when it sent a distress call shortly before losing radio contact last week.
What happened?
A cargo ship carrying nickel ore and two dozen crew have vanished in waters off Indonesia’s remote Maluku islands, authorities said.
Rough seas hampered earlier efforts to reach the remote area of the vast archipelago where the ship was last detected, according to local search and rescue chief Muslimin Samaila.
“We got there and found nothing,“ he said. “There was no sign of the boat or its crew. Its whereabouts are a mystery.”
Second incident in a short span of time
The incident comes after three people died and more than 300 were rescued when a boat traveling from Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya to Balikpapan on Borneo island burst into flames on Friday.
The Southeast Asian nation of more than 17,000 islands is heavily dependent on boat transport, but safety standards are lax and fatal maritime accidents are common.
In June, 21 people died when an overloaded ferry sank in rough seas off Java’s north coast. Some 160 people drowned when an Indonesian ferry sank into the depths of one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra island last year.
Search and rescue initiated
A Cessna aircraft was deployed Monday to search for cargo ship MV Nur Allya, which has been without contact since the communication was cut off on August 20 near Buru Island in Maluku. The vessel was carrying about 25 crew members.
“[The aircraft was deployed] to support flight distress alert patrol in the waters [between] Obi Island and Buru-Namlea Island,” Ambon Search and Rescue Agency head Muslimin said.
The aircraft, flying under Susi Air, was dispatched from Sultan Babullah Airport in Ternate, he added. The search and rescue agency received a report of lost contact from the Ternate Search and Rescue Office on August 20. The vessel was carrying nickel ore from Weda in Halmahera to Makassar in South Sulawesi.
Shipwreck discovered
Separately, the Navy’s Central Region Armada Command announced it had discovered the shipwreck of KM Santika Nusantara northwest of Bawean Island, East Java. The vessel previously caught fire on August 22.
The shipwreck was found floating at 2:20 p.m. local time, some 60 nautical miles from war vessel KRI Ahmad Yani-351, which had been on patrol together with KRI Karel Satsuit Tubun-356 since Aug. 23.
“The discovery will help ease the investigation into the cause of the fire as well as the search of victims’ bodies, which are possibly still within the shipwreck,” the command said in a written statement without providing an estimate on the number of victims.
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Source: TRTWorld&TheJakartaPost
