KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4 — Malaysian rescuers today said hopes were fading for 40 Indonesians who went missing at sea days earlier, as one survivor recounted how passengers terrified by high waves panicked and caused their boat to capsize.
The wooden boat, believed to be carrying 44 people including women and children from southern Johor state to Indonesia’s Batam island, sank in heavy seas late Thursday.
Four men were rescued on Friday by passing fishermen and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The accident occurred 13 nautical miles (24 kilometres) off the coast.
The passengers are believed to be illegal migrants working in Malaysia who wanted to return to their country to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the end of the Muslim fasting month next week, without passing border controls.
One of the survivors, Edey Muliadi, was quoted by The Star daily as saying when high waves hit the boat, the passengers panicked and crowded to one side of it, causing it to overturn.
“When we were thrown into the sea, all I could hear was people and children screaming in the pitch-darkness,” said the 26-year-old who worked as an excavator operator near the capital Kuala Lumpur.
He said the passengers tried to hold on to the overturned boat in the storm, but the vessel sank.
Amran Daud, an official with the maritime agency, said six vessels had been dispatched, while several helicopters were on standby with the weather clear today.
“We are continuing our operations. After three days in the ocean the chances are very slim to get a survivor,” he told AFP.
“From the survivors’ accounts, I would say that this boat is not seaworthy to travel in. They took the risk,” he added.
Muliadi said he managed to hold on to a plastic container filled with hot petrol, some of which spilled and scalded his chest, abdomen and hands.
“I was also bitten by small fish. It was really painful but all I could think of was to stay alive for my family,” he was quoted by The Star as saying.
Another survivor, a farm helper, hoping to reach his home island of Lombok via Batam, said he paid some 1,300 ringgit ($400) for what was to be his first trip back in 13 years.
Amran said the four men would be handed over to Indonesian consulate officials to return to their country.
An estimated four million foreigners, mostly from poorer countries in the region, such as Indonesia and Myanmar, work in Malaysia — many illegally — filling low-paying jobs shunned by locals on plantations, construction sites and in factories.
In mid-July, an Indonesian woman died and seven people went missing after their wooden boat capsized off Johor.
Twenty-seven Indonesians, heading to Batam without valid travel documents, were rescued. — AFP
