Search-and-rescue officers have recovered another body from a boat that sank in the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan last Wednesday, raising the death toll in the incident to 20.
Wahyu Widi Heranata, head of the provincial disaster mitigation agency, or BPBD, said the body found on Tuesday was that of an unidentified woman.
“Search officers found the body floating in the river about three kilometers from the site of the sinking,” he said.
Twenty people have now been confirmed dead in the incident in which the boat, the KM Arinda, carrying timber company workers, sank during a crossing to Samarinda, the provincial capital.
Twenty-one people survived, while three are missing and feared dead.
Wahyu said the search for bodies would continue, but stressed officials held out no hope of finding survivors at this point.
Separately, police said they were deepening their investigation into the incident to build their case against Tedi Noor Arifin, the 21-year-old captain of the boat who has been charged with criminal negligence for overloading the vessel.
“We’ve questioned various people as witnesses, including representatives from the timber company that hired the boat, the company that owned the boat and others,” Sr. Comr. Antonius Wisnu Sutirta, a spokesman for the provincial police, said on Tuesday.
“To date, we’ve only named the captain as a suspect. The local harbor master states the vessel had a maximum capacity of 38 people, but there were at least 44 we know of at the time of the sinking, so clearly this is a case of overloading.”
Under the criminal negligence charge against him, Tedi could face up to five years in prison. Police are considering charging him for operating a passenger vessel without a license.
Wednesday’s sinking was the latest deadly transportation accident in the Mahakam, Indonesia’s largest river, and has prompted calls for an overhaul of transportation management in and across the river.
Last September, 21 people died as a ferry capsized after hitting a log in the river just a few hours after leaving Samarinda.
The river also claimed the lives of 38 people who fell to their death when the Mahakam II Bridge in Kutai Kartanegara district collapsed in November 2011.
Hetifah Sjaifudian, a member of the House of Representatives from East Kalimantan, said the high death tolls there indicated ensuring safety was not a high priority for local transportation operators.
Wednesday 24 April 2013
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/womans-body-brings-death-toll-in-mahakam-sinking-to-20/587654
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