Plumes of smoke rise from a ferry which caught fire off Indonesia's Madura island, according to statement by the Indonesian search and rescue agency, in this screengrab obtained from a video, East Java province, Indonesia, August 2, 2026. Photo: Reuters
An Indonesian passenger ship carrying 243 people was reported missing after losing contact early on Sunday during bad weather, the search and rescue agency said.
The Virgo Transport 8 ship set sail on Saturday from the East Java city of Surabaya to the South Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin before losing contact, the agency said.
I Putu Sudayana, the head of the agency's Banjarmasin office, said in a video statement that 103 people had been evacuated using different ships and some of them would be taken to an East Java port.
Rescuers launched a search, deploying a team, ships and a helicopter toward the passenger vessel's last known position, he said, without stating what happened to the ship.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.
However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in a relatively high accident rate.
