19 Jul 2005

Recovery teams find 67 bodies after ferry sinking off Indonesia's Papua

6:32 pm on 19 July 2005

Reports from Indonesia say recovery teams have found a total of 67 bodies where a ferry sank in seas south of Merauke in the province of Papua.

The Jakarta Post newspaper reports officials as saying the vessel, Digoel, was carrying 2-hundred and six passengers when it sank on July 7th.

15 people were rescued.

The head of the Merauke search and rescue team, Supeno Yuwono, said the search for bodies would continue until tomorrow night.

Mr Supeno said that most of the bodies couldn't be identified as they'd already started to decompose.

The search and rescue team have deployed about 40 people to search for bodies.