By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AA) – Two overloaded wooden boats capsized Thursday in central Indonesia, leaving 11 people dead and six others missing.
West Java spokesman Commissioner Yusri Yunus told Anadolu Agency that a small boat with 14 farmers on board was being transported to their rice fields.
To shorten the distance, the spokesman said, they used a boat to cross the Anggararahan swamp in Jatiraga Village of Majalengka Regency in West Java province.
“We suspect the boat is overloaded so it capsized and sank into the swamp,” Yunus said.
The rescue agency’s team has found all the victims and has evacuated them to the nearest hospital.
“Nine people died, 5 survived,” he added.
Meanwhile, another overloaded boat, carrying 12 miners, also capsized on Thursday at Wringinanom River in Gresik Regency, East Java Province, leaving 2 people dead and 6 others missing.
“We found six miners, two of them dead and four alive,” local police chief, Adjunct Commissioner Rui Hartono told Anadolu Agency, adding a rescue team is searching for the missing people.
Indonesia’s waterways serve as a widespread form of transportation in some areas of the archipelago, where accidents resulting from overcrowded boats and lax safety standards are common.
On January, 190 passengers had been rescued after the fire broke out on the Zahro Express Ship, which was carrying tourists from Jakarta to Tidung Island in Thousand Islands Regency to the capital’s north. At least 23 people killed and 17 remain missing in the accident.
