Sinking Ship

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A ferry with 213 people on board sank off Indonesia's Riau islands on Sunday after being battered by bad weather, killing at least one person, police said.

Search teams are looking for survivors from the Dumai Express 10 which was sailing from Batam near Singapore to Dumai, a port in Riau, when it ran into massive waves, Riau police chief Puji Hartanto told Metro TV.

Rescuers recover body of a victim from a sunken ferry off Indonesia's Riau islands November 22, 2009. An overloaded ferry sank in bad weather off Indonesia's Riau islands on Sunday, killing 29 people, while 245 passengers survived the accident, officials said. (REUTERS/Stringer)
Survivors were spotted floating at sea, Hartanto said.

Separately, another ferry, the Dumai Express 15 with 278 people on board, ran aground after it was hit by large waves, said Riau police spokesman Yasin Kosasih.
All passengers and crew survived, he added. The ferry was travelling between Batam and Moro island.

Indonesia relies heavily on ferry services to connect the many islands in the sprawling archipelago.

But accidents are common, largely due to years of under-investment in infrastructure and a tendency to overload ferries. THE STAR

me & colleague boarding

Check out the above news. Just half a year ago, i took the same ferry. It was horrible. Had an assignment over at Dumai, & ferry was the fastest way. I felt like an immigrant. Having to cramp among them, pushing & screaming away to get in & out of ferry. In fact, I went twice on this ferry. First experience was horrible. They shut the engine down while we got out from the ferry. Things worsened when we had to queue at the exit to pay some tax. We were stuck for 1hr inside, suffocating away. Second experience werent much better either. Maybe because it was overloaded, it took 6hrs to reach, instead of 4hrs as usual. Just horrible. Thank God I am alive =)

p/s: jom g bercuti2 Dumai =)