JAKARTA, Indonesia — An overloaded passenger boat capsized off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi early Monday morning, killing at least 15 people and leaving 19 others missing, rescuers said.
Muhammad Arafah, a local official with the search and rescue agency, said the small wooden boat capsized just after midnight. He said it took people from village to village in Buton Central, an administrative district, or administrative district, in southeastern Sulawesi.
Mr Arafah said rescuers were searching for 19 people still missing in rough seas on Monday. He said six people had been rescued and 15 bodies were found.
Thousands of people in Buton Central came to their villages for local celebrations on Sunday, many of them traveling by fishing boat or carrying passengers.
Television news showed people on fishing boats picking up bodies in the dark, and grieving loved ones waiting for news at the port and local hospital.
Ferries are a popular form of transportation in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. With safety standards often lax and overloads common, accidents happen frequently.
In 2018, an overcrowded ferry with about 200 people on board sank in a lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people.
In one of the worst recorded disasters in Indonesia, an overcrowded passenger ship sank in February 1999 with 332 people on board. Only 20 people survived.
