At least 61 people are unaccounted for following the sinking of a ferry in the waters off Bali, Indonesia, late on Wednesday evening, according to a local search and rescue agency. The vessel went down at approximately 11:20 pm local time (1520 GMT) as it travelled across the Bali Strait from Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, to the popular tourist hotspot of Bali. A statement from the Surabaya-based rescue agency confirmed the incident and ongoing search operations.
According to the agency, the ferry’s manifest listed 53 passengers and 12 crew members on board. It also carried 22 vehicles, including 14 lorries.
“Rescue teams are still working to locate those missing,” the statement read. “The ferry is believed to have sunk at around 23:20 local time.”
Four people were rescued in the early hours of Thursday, the agency confirmed in a subsequent update. Search and rescue operations are continuing in the area.
Maritime disasters are not uncommon in Indonesia, a vast archipelago made up of around 17,000 islands, where enforcement of safety regulations is often lax.
In a separate incident earlier this year, an Australian tourist died and several others were injured when a boat carrying 16 people overturned in choppy seas off Bali in March.
In 2018, one of the country’s worst ferry disasters saw over 150 lives lost when a vessel sank in Lake Toba, one of the world’s deepest inland bodies of water, located on Sumatra island.
