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Indonesian authorities continue to search for more than a hundred people who remain missing after a passenger ship sank in the Java Sea, with a confirmed death toll of 10 people, according to the country's rescue agency.
The vessel Virgo Transport 8, which was carrying 243 people, including 30 crew members, capsized due to bad weather in the early hours of September 13, during a 20-hour voyage from Surabaya, East Java, to Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.
"We hope that the weather at the site will be favorable so that more victims trapped inside the ship can be evacuated," said I Putu Sudayana, an official from the national rescue agency, at a press conference.
"The agency will send a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) inside the vessel to help guide divers during the operation," Putu added.
Divers recovered one more body from inside the vessel's hull on Sunday, September 20, after finding three victims on Friday, September 18. After the last operation, 125 passengers remained missing and 108 people had survived.
The rescue agency has extended the salvage operation for another week due to the high number of missing people and because righting the vessel is expected to take time, authorities reported on Saturday, September 19.