Indonesia ship sinks with hundreds aboard

JAKARTA, Dec 30 (Reuters) An Indonesian ferry with at least 600 aboard sank during a stormy night-time voyage as it travelled between Borneo and Java islands, officials said today.

The sinking is the second ferry disaster in as many days in Indonesia after a vessel capsized on Thursday in rough seas off Sumatra island.

High seas and bad weather were hampering efforts to rescue survivors in the latest disaster, officials said today, but 69 had been found as of late afternoon, Riyadi, the Search and Rescue operations chief in Semarang in Central Java, said.

Most of the survivors were in hospital in Rembang. Nine people were still on Bawean island, he told Reuters.

Rembang is a town in Central Java province. Bawean, in the Java Sea 663 kilometres (412 miles) east of Jakarta, is where many survivors were taken initially.

''I am from Purworejo. I hope rescuers can find my daughter,'' survivor Cholid told Elshinta radio from a hospital in Rembang, where he said he had been taken by the fishermen who found him.

Crew members ordered passengers to put on lifejackets before the ship sank, he said.

The ship had reported leaking before it sank at around midnight.

Toni Syaiful, a Navy spokesman in the East Java city of Surabaya south of where the ship went down, said it had left Kalimantan on Borneo yesterday evening for Semarang.

Six navy ships, a helicopter and an airplane had been mobilised to comb the area where it sank, he said, but the weather was making rescue efforts difficult.

''There are big waves now, about two to three metres and it is also raining.'' Syaiful said the ship carried 542 passengers based on tickets sold and 63 crew. Earlier figures from officials and media had ranged from 500 to 850 on board.

Indonesian vessels often carry passengers not listed on the official manifests. It is also not unusual for information on disasters to vary among agencies and officials. Communications infrastructure is sometimes poor and more than one bureaucracy can have responsibility for collecting data.

Ships and ferries are a popular means of transport among Indonesia's 17,000 islands, where sea connections are cheaper and more available than air routes.

However, safety standards are not always enforced, and accidents occur fairly often.

Rescue efforts were also underway today for passengers on a ferry that capsized off Sumatra island on Thursday night during bad weather.

''From 51 passengers, we have found four bodies and 28 people been secured. We are searching for 14 others,'' said Abu Sopha Ibrahim, spokesman for South Sumatra police.

REUTERS AKJ DS1655