By Ananda Teresia and Yuddy Cahya Budiman
JAKARTA, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Rizky Apriansyah was asleep on the top deck of the Virgo Transport 8, the ferry that capsized in Indonesia’s Java Sea, when friends woke him up at around 1 a.m. on Sunday, urging him to grab a life jacket.
At that point, the ship was already heeling at roughly 30 degrees to the left, Rizky told Reuters.
Panicked, he and his four friends rushed out of their room. Rizky, who worked as a waiter onboard, recalled seeing waves as high as 3 to 4 metres hitting the vessel multiple times, sending the ship listing even further.
No alarm was rung, he said, and he feared other passengers might not be aware of the impending tragedy.
The ferry company, Virgo Karya Shipping, told local media they could not comment on the alarm issue because they needed to check with the crew on board at the time.
Reuters could not immediately contact the company.
“When I went out that door, I immediately fell onto the ship’s railing. I held on and hugged my friends, then we were swept away by the waves,” Rizky said.
In mere minutes, he and his friends were adrift at sea, holding on to a floating 12-kilogram cooking gas cylinder, about 15 meters from the ship.
They watched as the ferry overturned.
“It only took minutes for the ship to capsize, even less than 10 minutes,” Rizky said.
They then floated for about 10 hours before another ship spotted them and saved them.
Six people died in the accident and 129 remain missing as of Tuesday as rescuers battled rough seas and strong wind in their operation to find survivors. Some 234 were aboard.
The ferry was travelling about 510 kilometres from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya in East Java to Banjarmasin in Borneo island, roughly a 20-hour trip.
It left the port in Surabaya on Saturday afternoon, and was reported missing on Sunday morning. Authorities eventually found it inverted around 80 nautical miles (nearly 150 km) from the Banjarmasin port.
Rizky said since the ship left Surabaya, it had been rocked by high waves. He had only been working onboard for three months. Now he said he is traumatised and would not work at sea again.
“I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, suffocated, and just accepted whatever will happen,” he said, with his eyes still red and minor wounds visible in parts of his body.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Yuddy Cahya Budiman; Editing by Gayatri Suroyo and Alexandra Hudson)
