Bad weather hits desperate Indonesia ferry search

By Yusuf Ahmad

PARE-PARE, Indonesia (Reuters) - Driving rain and heavy seas Tuesday hindered the hunt for more survivors from an Indonesian ferry that sank off Sulawesi island at the weekend, amid confusion over exactly who was on board, officials said.

The ferry, which had 250 passengers and 17 crew according to the manifest, was travelling from Pare-Pare on the west coast of Sulawesi to Samarinda city on Indonesia's side of Borneo island when it ran into bad weather Sunday.

Since then, there has been little let up in the dreadful weather hampering the search and growing indications that there may have been more people on the vessel than the official tally.

"Until now we have found 35 people, but one of them was dead. They were found around the area where the boat sank," said Taufik Bulu, head of maritime safety in Pare-Pare.

The official said the body of a woman was the first corpse recovered, contradicting an earlier comment by another official Monday that six bodies had been found.

"The wind is strong and right now it has been raining heavily. This is a problem," added Bulu, who said that seven ships had been deployed in the search effort.

Earlier, an official had said that a cargo ship might be carrying seven more survivors to the port of Makassar in Sulawesi, but another official later clarified that the seven were included in the list of 34 survivors.

Local TV footage showed an exhausted looking man being plucked from the sea by a rescue vessel.