Rescue effort under way after boat carrying 18 people capsizes in bad weather off the Mentawai Islands.
Rescuers in Indonesia are searching for 11 people who went missing after a boat capsized in bad weather off the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra province, according to a local search and rescue agency.
Dozens of rescuers and two boats were at the site of the disaster on Tuesday, and seven of the 18 people on board the boat have been rescued, the agency said in a statement.
The vessel capsized at about 11am on Monday (04:00 GMT) as it sailed around the Mentawai Islands.
It had departed Sikakap, a small town in the Mentawai Islands, and was heading to another small town, Tuapejat. Of 18 people on board, 10 were local government officials.
“Our focus is on combing the area around the estimated accident site to find all victims,” said Rudi, the head of the Mentawai search and rescue agency.
He did not give a cause for the boat capsizing, but marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago of approximately 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards or bad weather.
On July 3, a ferry carrying 65 people sank off the popular resort island of Bali, killing at least 18 people.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest volcanic lakes on Sumatra island.
