Yahoo – AFP,
1 Aug 2014
Indonesians arrive by boat to attend the morning prayer to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr festival at the Sunda Kelapa port district of Jakarta, on July 28, 2014 |
Rescuers
pulled 12 more bodies from an Indonesian river Friday, bringing the death toll
in two boat sinkings to 36, as millions travel across the country for the Eid
holiday season.
Most
Indonesians in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation spend Eid, the end of
the holy fasting month of Ramadan, with their families, abandoning cities in
the massive exodus.
Local
police confirmed 19 people dead from a boat carrying 48 that sank late
Wednesday in a river on the island of Sumatra.
"We
are still searching for the last missing person. The rest are accounted
for," local police chief of operations E. Hutagaol told AFP.
A ferry
carrying 70 people on the Indonesian part of Borneo island sank on Tuesday,
with authorities Friday revising the final death toll down from 18 to 17. The
rest of the passengers and crew survived.
The
National Disaster Management Agency said police were questioning the ferry crew
as there were reports it might have been operating at overcapacity.
Boat
accidents in the vast Indonesian archipelago are not uncommon, and there is a
significant death toll from transport accidents during Eid each year.
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