الرئيسية
A heavily overloaded boat packed with around 250 Afghan and Iranian
migrants seeking asylum in Australia sank off Indonesia, with bad
weather and high seas hampering rescue efforts, according to officials.
The
fibreglass vessel was following a well-worn, and occasionally
disastrous, route from the southern coast of Java to the remote
Australian territory of Christmas Island when it sank on Saturday,
officials said.
Fishermen and rescuers have so far plucked 33
people -- 30 men, a woman and two children -- from the sea despite
strong currents and waves of up to five metres (16 feet), said a search
and rescue official in Trenggalek district.
The boat was carrying
around 250 people when it sank 40 nautical miles (74 kilometres) off
Prigi beach in eastern Java on Saturday, said the official, Kelik
Purwanto.
Survivors were floating in the sea for six hours before fishermen rescued them, survivors and officials said.
Purwanto
said that around 150 rescue officials had been deployed to comb the sea
to look for the passengers still missing from Saturday's disaster,
which occurred 640 kilometres (400 miles) southeast of Jakarta.
One survivor, 17-year-old Afghan student Armaghan Haidar, said he was sleeping when a storm came up and began to rock the boat.
"I
felt water touching my feet and woke up. As the boat was going down,
people were panicking and shouting and trying to rush out," he told AFP.
"I
managed to swim out and hang on to the side of the boat with about 100
others. (There were) about 20 to 30 others with life jackets, but
another 100 people were trapped inside," he said.
"There was only water around us, no island, nothing. The huge waves swept away 20 people," he added.
Yoso
Mihardi, a spokesman for the Trenggalek district government, said that
the boat had a capacity of 100, but was overloaded with 250 people.
"That, combined with heavy rain and high waves, might have caused the boat to tip over and capsize," he said.
Australia
Sunday called the incident "a terrible tragedy", but activists pointed
to Canberra's refugee policy as partly responsible.
"Our focus
today is on the search and rescue effort and our thoughts today are with
the people who died and with the families of those still lost at sea,"
Australian Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said.
migrants seeking asylum in Australia sank off Indonesia, with bad
weather and high seas hampering rescue efforts, according to officials.
The
fibreglass vessel was following a well-worn, and occasionally
disastrous, route from the southern coast of Java to the remote
Australian territory of Christmas Island when it sank on Saturday,
officials said.
Fishermen and rescuers have so far plucked 33
people -- 30 men, a woman and two children -- from the sea despite
strong currents and waves of up to five metres (16 feet), said a search
and rescue official in Trenggalek district.
The boat was carrying
around 250 people when it sank 40 nautical miles (74 kilometres) off
Prigi beach in eastern Java on Saturday, said the official, Kelik
Purwanto.
Survivors were floating in the sea for six hours before fishermen rescued them, survivors and officials said.
Purwanto
said that around 150 rescue officials had been deployed to comb the sea
to look for the passengers still missing from Saturday's disaster,
which occurred 640 kilometres (400 miles) southeast of Jakarta.
One survivor, 17-year-old Afghan student Armaghan Haidar, said he was sleeping when a storm came up and began to rock the boat.
"I
felt water touching my feet and woke up. As the boat was going down,
people were panicking and shouting and trying to rush out," he told AFP.
"I
managed to swim out and hang on to the side of the boat with about 100
others. (There were) about 20 to 30 others with life jackets, but
another 100 people were trapped inside," he said.
"There was only water around us, no island, nothing. The huge waves swept away 20 people," he added.
Yoso
Mihardi, a spokesman for the Trenggalek district government, said that
the boat had a capacity of 100, but was overloaded with 250 people.
"That, combined with heavy rain and high waves, might have caused the boat to tip over and capsize," he said.
Australia
Sunday called the incident "a terrible tragedy", but activists pointed
to Canberra's refugee policy as partly responsible.
"Our focus
today is on the search and rescue effort and our thoughts today are with
the people who died and with the families of those still lost at sea,"
Australian Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said.