8 killed, 24 missing after boat sinks in E Indonesia
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The Chinese Embassy to Indonesia confirmed on Monday that 24 Chinese citizens were involved in the fast boat sinking accident in eastern Indonesia waters.
By now, eight people were confirmed to have been killed and one evacuated safely from the accident, said Amin Bintongke, head of operational of Maluccas rescue team, on Sunday. He told Xinhua over phone from Maluccas that among the 33 victims, 24 were Chinese passengers, five were crews, and the others were unidentified passengers.
Zhong Ruiming, counselor of Chinese Embassy, told Xinhua that the Embassy attached great importance to the accident as soon as they received the information, and it had asked Indonesia government to send navy force and professional rescue team to search the Chinese victims.
However, Zhong has not identified the 24 Chinese citizens on board.
The accident happened on Jan. 27 at 15:00 local time (0600 GMT) in Moluccas water near the Southeast Maluku province. The "Dolphin" fast boat carrying 33 people sank near the Aru islands due to bad weather and waves as high as two to five meters.
"The boat sank at the midday, one hour after it left the harbor in Dobo island in Aru islands for Tual district in Southeast Maluku," Amin said.
"Eight people have been found dead, some of them are Chinese, and another Chinese has been found alive. The rest of 24 people are still missing," he added.
Poor weather has been blamed for the accident, as the country's meteorology and Geophysics Agency had issued a warning not to sail since days ago. "It seems that the boat violated the warning. It departed from an old harbor in Dobo, but actually it should leave from an official harbor with permission," said Amin. "The passengers seemed forced the boat to sail, as they had an urgent business."
Search and rescue work is still under way, in spite of the bad weather here, he said.
According to Antara News Agency, there were 35 people on board, and the 24 Chinese victims were employed by a local company PT. Arabika Jaya Tama (AJT) to build a factory in Penambulai island of Maluku.
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