Saturday, December 17, 2011

Migrant ship sinks off Indonesia; over 200 missing

Migrant ship sinks off Indonesia; over 200 missing

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) â€" Rescuers battled high waves Sunday as they searched for 200 asylum seekers still blank after their wooden vessel sank off Indonesia's categorical island of Java. So far, usually 33 people have been plucked alive from a choppy waters.

Survivors told authorities they had been perplexing to strech Australia, pronounced Lt. Alwi Mudzakir, a nautical military central who was streamer rescue operations.

He blamed Saturday's collision on overloading, observant a vessel â€" packaged with 250 men, women and children from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey â€" seemed to have been carrying some-more than twice a capacity.

When a vessel became fluid 20 miles (32 kilometers) off Java's coast, people started panicking, causing it dual lean vigourously behind and forth, until finally it capsized.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelagic republic of 240 million people, has some-more than 18,000 islands and thousands of miles (kilometers) of unpatrolled coastline, creation it a pivotal movement indicate for bootlegging migrants.

Those on a vessel that sank Saturday had upheld by a capital, Jakarta, 3 days progressing but any authorised immigration documents, according to police.

An unclear organisation installed them onto 4 buses and brought them to a port, earnest to get them to Christmas Island, an Australian domain in a Indian Ocean.

One of a survivors, Esmat Adine, told a central news group Antara that when a vessel started to rock, triggering a panic, people were so firmly packaged they had nowhere to go.

"That done a vessel even some-more unstable, and eventually it sank," pronounced a 24-year-old Afghan migrant, adding that he and others survived by sticking to tools of a damaged vessel until they were picked adult by internal fishermen.

He estimated that some-more than 40 children were on a ship. Mudzakir pronounced that dual children and a lady were among a 33 who had been rescued.

The military central was giving adult wish of anticipating some-more survivors, observant continue was bad and 4 fishing boats and a navy fight vessel concerned in a operation were battling 4-meter- (13-foot-) high waves.

"We fear that a vast series of victims will not be rescued," he said.

Last month, a vessel carrying about 70 haven seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan capsized off a southern seashore of Central Java province, and during slightest 8 people died.

___

Associated Press author Niniek Karmini contributed to this report.


News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/migrant-ship-sinks-off-indonesia-over-200-missing-024021147.html

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