It was announced on Friday that 19 people are dead and 4 others still missing on the third day after KM Karya Indah, a wooden ship leased by PT Kalamur, sank in the Mahakam River, in Samarinda, East Kalimantan.
Rescue workers found 16 bodies on Friday, some more than a kilometer downstream from the site of the tragedy.
East Kalimantan Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) head Wahyu Widhi Heranata said that there were a total of 44 people onboard. Twenty-one passengers are known to have survived.
The announcement was made after East Kalimantan Governor Awang Faroek Ishak visited the search and rescue command post in Loa Janan.
It was previously reported that up to 68 people were on board when the accident took place.
Wahyu blamed the lack of a manifest for hindering the swift identification of the missing after the accident.
Only one passenger, Nurhayati, 41, has been identified.
The BPBD is coordinating with the local office of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) and the public order agency.
“Search and rescue work will continue until at least Tuesday in the emergency response stage,” Wahyu said.
Human error was blamed for the accident. Passengers crowded the bow of the boat, leading to it sink according to the East Kalimantan Police intelligence unit chief Sr. Comr. Hari Prasojo.
Most of the passengers were women, according to reports. While the vessel reportedly was well equipped with life vests, the passengers did not use them.
Bodies of the unidentified victims have been taken to the Abdul Wahab Syahrani General Hospital in Samarinda.
The ship carrying employees of PT Kalamur, sank about 7:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. Jakarta time) on Wednesday when ferrying the employees from PT Kalamur wharf at their work site to their dormitories some 500 meters away in Loa Janan Ilir district in Samarinda.
The ship was only about 50 meters from the Loa Janan wharf, when the high river tide swamped it and it sank.
The victims are all employees of plywood companies PT Kalamur and PT Melapi Timber.
The firm will provide compensation for victims through Jamsostek.
Meanwhile, the Samarinda Port Police has named KM Karya Indah skipper, Teddy Noor Arifin, 20, as suspect in the accident, Antara news agency reported.
“We have named one suspect, the ship’s skipper, and he is has already been detained,” said Samarinda Port Police chief Comr. Harun Purwoko.
The initial investigation revealed that the ship was overloaded. The capacity was only 30 passengers but there were more on board at the time of accident.
“If his negligence which directly led to the death of at least 19 women, the suspect may get five years in jail,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kompas.com reported that the ship’s owner, Suriansyah, said that PT Kalamur had contracted his ship to carry employees since 1992 without any problems.
“But sometimes they recruit outsourcing workers if there is more work and those contract workers can sometimes be unruly ignoring safety precautions,” he said when questioned at the Samarinda Port Police station
Saturday 20 April 2013
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/04/20/19-dead-mahakam-boat-accident-4-still-missing.html
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