Indonesia

Jakarta, September 13, 2026. In Indonesia, the national press is following the rescue operation of the Virgo Transport 8, a passenger ship that departed from Surabaya on Saturday bound for Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan, with 243 people on board, hour by hour. The vessel lost contact around 2 am on Sunday, after encountering severe weather in the Java Sea, according to the search and rescue agency Basarnas.

I Putu Sudayana, head of the Banjarmasin search and rescue office, detailed the mechanics of the rescue at a series of press conferences: three merchant ships - the oil tanker TB Mauhaw IX, operated by Pertamina Patra Niaga, the tugboat TB TCP, from Transcoal Pacific, and the cargo ship MV Haida, operated by PT Virgo, the same company as the missing ship - have recovered a total of 103 people from the water, including one who did not survive. The survivors were distributed between the port of Tuban in East Java and the port of Trisakti in Banjarmasin. "We have made efforts to search for victims with the maximum means," Sudayana said.

Basarnas has deployed a joint device: the helicopter HR-3601 from the Juanda naval airbase with five crew members and two rescuers, the ship KN SAR 249 Permadi, the KN SAR Laksmana 241, as well as the warship KRI Nala and the navigation vessel KM Kunyit. The East Java water and air police have also been mobilized. The last known position of the ferry was about 80 nautical miles from the Basirih SAR dock.

Locally, attention is also focused on the reception of survivors: the South Kalimantan regional police have placed trauma units and emergency services on alert, according to spokesperson Nur Khamid, who mentions ongoing coordination to ensure a rapid medical response.

At the end of the day, a heavier toll emerged: Basarnas reported six dead and 140 people still missing, on a ship carrying 89 vehicles for a total of 243 people. The cause of the accident, whether natural, technical, or human factors, remains to be determined by the authorities.