The motor vessel was drifting to follow the sea current after it ran out of fuel in the Banda sea off Manuk on Thursday night.
Ambon (ANTARA News) - A rescue team resumed search for a vessel with more than ten people on board reported missing since last Friday.

The KM.Merlin was on its way from Nila to Waipia on the island of Seram in the regency of Maluku Tengah.

The motor vessel was drifting to follow the sea current after it ran out of fuel in the Banda sea off Manuk on Thursday night, according Olop Saryoa, one of four passengers, who were brought to land by local fishermen .

Olop and three other passengers Aspenas Tenmury, Ely Saryoa and Ny.Windy Romer reported to the port authority in Ambon where they had been brought to land by the fishermen on Sunday.

The passengers managed to make contact with the chief of the Teon, Nila and Serua sub-district when the vessel was dragged by the current to near Tepa in the regency of Maluku Barat Daya.

"We also succeeded in making contact with Suyanto Samijan, the head of the Search and Rescure Agency of Ambon, but we managed only to tell him our general location. Communication could not last long as the hand phone battery ran out of power," Olop said, adding "we lost contact since Friday night."

The rescue team and the four passengers immediately headed for the location off the Ambalau island in the regency of Buru Selatan, where the vessel had been left by the four passengers, but they were soon engulfed by the darkness of the night forcing them to return to Ambon.

The secretary of the Maluku disaster control agency (BPBD), Kifly Wakanno, said the agency has also sent a patrol boat to help in the search in the sea off Kelang, Manipa and Buano.

"We have asked the authority in Ambon to use aircraft in the search for the missing vessel," Kifly said, adding help has also been asked from the Maluku police.

Samijan said ships that might encounter the vessel or see signs of vessels in the sea are called on to lend help to save the passengers of the ill-fated vessel and report to us immediately.

Earlier a community leader of the island of Teon, Nila and Serua (TNS), Semmy Kosten, said a passenger of the vessel told him via cellular phone that they were short of foods and drink after two days adrift in the sea off Haruku.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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