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Victims trapped in sinking ferry
Despair: Parni, 55, weeps after reading her child’s name on the list of passengers on board the sunken ship KM Sinar Bangun at Tigaras port, Lake Toba, Simalungun, North Sumatra, on Saturday
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espair: Parni, 55, weeps after reading her child’s name on the list of passengers on board the sunken ship KM Sinar Bangun at Tigaras port, Lake Toba, Simalungun, North Sumatra, on Saturday. In the six days following the sinking of the ship, many people have visited the port in search of their relatives. (Antara Irsan Mulyadi)
Statements from survivors of an overloaded ferry revealed that most of the victims had been trapped in the vessel’s second level when it sank in Lake Toba, North Sumatra, last week.
“When the boat was sinking, its second level was packed with passengers,” Budiawan, head of the Medan search and rescue (SAR)team in North Sumatra, told The Jakarta Post.
As of Sunday, the team has found 22 passengers, 19 of whom survived. The exact number of people traveling that day remains unknown as the ferry had been overloaded, though authorities’ closest estimation is 184.
The ferry’s maximum capacity is 60 passengers.
SAR personnel faced a number of challenges in their search for missing victims, including the lake’s cold temperatures in the evenings, meaning they could only dive in the day. Divers have also been unable to locate the vessel, KM Sinar Bangun, as they had been warned against going past a depth of 80 meters.
On Sunday, after seven days of searching, multibeam and side-scan sonars detected two objects at 490 meters beneath the surface that resembled the sunken ferry, according to National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) head Air Marshal M. Syauqi.
SAR teams employed two methods in their attempt to locate the vessel: combing the waters within a 32-kilometer radius of Tigaras Port and diving with sonar devices.
“We are still processing our findings,” Syauqi said, adding that chances were high the objects detected by sonar were the remains of the ferry as they looked different from sonar images depicting the bottom of the lake.
According to Arie Prasetyo, head of the Lake Toba Authority board, the search for KM Sinar Bangun was being conducted by Basarnas survey, private company Mahakarya Geo Survey and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) Alumni Association.
“As for the next step, we will hand over the process of identifying KM Sinar Bangun to the authorities,” Arie told the Post.
KM Sinar Baru capsized on June 18 at about 5 p.m. local time as it was traveling from Simanindo Port to Tigaras Port in Simalungun.
The ferry’s captain, identified as TS, was detained by the Samosir Police on Sunday and declared a suspect in the incident.
According to National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian, this was not TS first time steering an overloaded ferry. He said investigators would also question related parties that were supposed to be responsible for the boat, such as the transportation agency and the local harbor master.
“I will not hesitate to take action against whoever is responsible; not only the captain but also those responsible for monitoring the vessel’s operation,” Tito said on Sunday as quoted by tribunnews.com.
The sinking of KM Sinar Bangun is the latest in a long list of similar accidents that highlight the negligence of small boat operators when it comes to passenger safety.
According to Saut Gurning, dean of the November 10 Institute of Technology’s marine engineering postgraduate program, safety awareness among small boat operators remained low, meaning that passenger safety was not a priority to them.
However, vessel operators are not the only ones to blame as regulators, and even passengers themselves, have little awareness regarding the safety requirements of boats, he said.
“These small vessel operators often use their own experiences to take care of passenger safety instead of actual passenger safety standards. For example, they provide safety equipment, but they only provide it in certain quantities, which, in many, does not match the number of passengers on board,” he said.
Furthermore, operators often attempt to fit more passengers onto their boats than their maximum capacity, he added, pointing to the local tuktuk (motorboat) on Samosir as an example.
“Most tuktuk can only carry up to 50 people at the same time, but the captain allows 70 people to board. This is a common practice in the area,” Saut said. (dpk)
