A ferry with more than 800 people on board, which lay stranded on shoals off Indonesia for two days, was refloated on Thursday and was able to reach a nearby port, officials said.
Posted at 3:59 p.m.
“With great effort, the km Sirimau which had been stranded for two days, was cleared at 12 p.m.,” the head of the local navy base Dwi Yoga told AFP.
the km Sirimauwhich was carrying 784 passengers and 55 crew members, ran aground during a 184 km crossing in the province of the Lesser Sunda Islands (in Indonesian Nusa Tenggara East).
A tug sent by the public shipping company PT Pelni arrived in the area on Thursday which was able to unblock the boat after waiting for high tide.
The ferry docked at Lewoleba port on Lembata island for security checks two hours after being released, local search and rescue official Putu Sudayana said.
“All the passengers are in good health,” he told AFP.
The ship must then continue its journey to the town of Maumere, on the island of Flores, the final destination for most passengers.
On Thursday morning, the military boarded the ship to distribute water and snacks to passengers, including children and the elderly.
Once the ferry was refloated, passengers cheered, said passenger Itha Tating.
“We all shouted with joy when we discovered that the boat was free, the passengers and the crew all started to applaud happily”, she added, joined by AFP on the phone.
“The waves were very strong this morning. I was scared and seasick,” Itha Tating said, adding that she would no longer take the ferry.
She explained that a woman panicked because she had run out of formula for her five-month-old baby.
Accidents at sea are frequent in Indonesia, an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands. People rely on ferries and other boats for travel despite poor safety standards.
In 2018, some 160 people died in the sinking of a ferry in one of the deepest lakes in the world, on the island of Sumatra.
More than 300 people drowned in 2009 in the sinking of a boat between Sulawesi and Borneo.