By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Divers off Indonesia have recovered three bodies from a capsized ferry, authorities said, as the search for roughly 126 still-missing passengers and crew stretched on under worsening conditions.
Bad weather has forced rescue teams to delay operations aimed at righting the overturned vessel, a step officials say is necessary before a full search of the hull can proceed. The ferry went down with an unspecified number of people aboard; the exact total of passengers and crew, and the circumstances of the capsizing, have not been detailed in available reporting.
Indonesia's waters are crossed daily by inter-island ferries, often overloaded and operating in a monsoon-prone archipelago where sudden storms are common. This desk does not yet have confirmed details on the vessel's capacity, ownership, or whether it was operating within safety limits — questions that typically follow disasters of this kind and that Indonesian maritime authorities will need to answer in the coming days.
What is confirmed: divers are working the wreck, three bodies have been recovered, and well over a hundred people remain missing as the operation continues. Families of those aboard are waiting on a coastline where the sea has not yet given up its answers.
We will update this report as authorities release further details on casualties, the cause of the capsizing, and the vessel's manifest.
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."