LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia – Search and rescue teams arriving at the site of a sunken cargo vessel near Labuan Bajo on Saturday expected to find crew members.
Instead, they found an empty vessel.
The cargo ship sank Saturday afternoon in waters near Seraya Island, close to Labuan Bajo, one of eastern Indonesia’s busiest tourism gateways and the main departure point for trips to Komodo National Park.
When rescue personnel reached the scene, there was nobody onboard.
“There was no one on the vessel,” said Arif Rahmadan, coordinator of the Labuan Bajo Search and Rescue Post, on Saturday evening.
What happened to the crew remains unclear.
Search operations continued into Saturday night as rescue teams maintained monitoring efforts and coordinated further response measures.
Authorities Move to Correct Viral Claims
As images and information about the sinking began circulating online, local maritime authorities moved quickly to challenge claims spreading on social media that the vessel had been carrying tourists.
Officials said those reports were inaccurate.
According to Stephanus Risdiyanto, head of the Labuan Bajo Class III Harbormaster and Port Authority Office, the vessel was not an open-deck tourist boat commonly used for island-hopping excursions around Labuan Bajo.
Instead, authorities say it was a cargo vessel operated by local residents transporting goods to Seraya Island.
“The information we received is that this was a local cargo boat regularly used to transport goods to Seraya,” Stephanus said.
“It was not an open-deck vessel used for tourism.”
More Questions Than Answers
Several important details remain unknown.
Authorities have not publicly identified the vessel.
Its ownership remains unclear.
Officials have not confirmed how many crew members were onboard before the sinking or what may have caused the vessel to go down.
Rescue teams continue monitoring the waters around Seraya while attempting to establish exactly what happened.
For now, what is known is limited.
A cargo vessel sank.
Rescuers arrived.
And the vessel they found had nobody onboard.
