Indonesia: search underway for a missing journalists' boat near the Anak Krakatau volcano

Indonesia launched a search on Tuesday to find a boat carrying eight people including five journalists who were covering the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano, with which contact was lost on Monday, emergency services announced. The speedboat departed Monday afternoon from a port in Banten province, about 120 km west of the capital Jakarta, the search and rescue agency said in a statement.

Among the passengers are five Indonesian journalists working for local and international media, including the Indonesian public news agency Antara, the Turkish Anadolu agency and the local news site Inews. The journalists intended to photograph and film the eruptions of the Anak Krakatau volcano.

A search operation was launched on Tuesday. One of the journalists contacted a colleague and informed him of his location at 3:00 p.m. local time (8:00 GMT) on Monday, but has not heard anything since. “So far they have not returned and the boat owner has not received any information from the crew,” the search agency said.

A search operation was launched on Tuesday, mobilizing rescuers, river and air police as well as the company that owns the boat. The head of the local rescue agency Al Amrad said in a statement that five journalists, two crew members and a guide were on board.

Quoted by Kompas TV, he added that search operations had been suspended for Tuesday and would resume on Wednesday morning. The Antara agency confirmed that its photographer Muhammad Bagus Khoirunas was one of the missing passengers on the boat. The agency stressed that it was in contact with the authorities for more information, and that the police had informed it that the search was complicated due to high waves and poor visibility.

The volcano's eruptions forced authorities to suspend air traffic on Sunday at several airports for two days. Flights resumed on Tuesday at Jakarta International Airport in particular. Maritime accidents are frequent in Indonesia, a vast Southeast Asian archipelago of 17,000 islands, due in particular to lax safety standards and sometimes complicated weather conditions.