Ferry disaster survivors recount panic-filled moments

MANADO, Indonesia - Some bailed furiously. Some took their chances and jumped into the stormy ocean. Some battled over the too few life jackets aboard and even fought with knives to get them.

The 10 known survivors of the sinking of the Cahaya Bahari ferry gave harrowing accounts Monday, a day after they were found floating in the sea and clinging to one another, of the overloaded vessel's final moments.

''There were too many people. But it was forced to set sail anyway,'' said survivor Reny Sopakua, 29, as she lay in the sick bay of an Indonesian navy ship. The ferry was licensed to carry 290 passengers, but had almost 500 on board.

Searchers failed to find any trace Monday of the 481 passengers and crew still missing. Officials said the search would continue, but admitted the chances of finding more alive from Thursday's disaster were slim.

The wooden-hulled vessel was packed with frightened Christians fleeing bloody fighting with Muslims on the Maluku islands when it went down in a storm, halfway through a 200-mile voyage to the port of Manado on Sulawesi Island.

Still dazed by the ordeal, Sopakua recounted how massive waves hit the ferry and filled it with water. The hull started leaking and the crew jettisoned tons of cargo, mainly coconuts. Many male passengers began bailing.

''There was just too much water. The ship started tipping over and people panicked. Fights broke out when they realized there weren't enough life jackets. Some fought with knives,'' she said.

At one stage the surging crowd separated her from her husband and young son. Reunited, they jumped overboard and grabbed hold of a float just before the ship sank.

A day or so later the child died. Exhausted, without food or water and burned by the tropical sun, her husband started hallucinating and swam away, saying he wanted to find an island to bury the boy.

''He didn't come back, so I let go of my son's body,'' she said, holding back tears.

Stanley Langsiaputi, at 10 the youngest survivor, said he held onto another float with his mother and father. After falling asleep, he woke to find his parents gone.

On Sunday, a fishing boat plucked the survivors, the oldest of whom was 29, along with one dead body from the water close to Karakelong island, 120 miles northeast of Manado.

Cmdr. Djoko Sumaryono, who has been heading the sea and air search, said responsibility for the operation would be transferred from the navy to civilian maritime rescuers. But he denied that efforts were being scaled back.

''There is still a chance, but as time goes on it will get more difficult,'' he said of the likelihood of finding more survivors.

In Manado, scores of relatives waited for news of those still missing.

''We can only pray,'' said a man whose son and daughter-in-law were among those unaccounted for.

The vessel, which began its trip Wednesday, was reported to be carrying several dozen people injured in an attack by Muslim extremists last week on the village of Duma, where more than 100 people, mainly Christians, were slain.

Thousands of Christians have taken similar ferry trips to Manado from the Malukus, where violence has killed almost 3,000 people of both faiths in the past 18 months.

Muslims make up about 90 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people, but Christians are in the majority in many parts of the Malukus, known as the Moluccas or Spice Islands during Dutch colonial days.

An influx of Muslim migrants taking over retail and transport businesses from Christians has fueled animosities, and Islamic fighters say they are only standing up for the rights of Muslims who face attacks by Christians.

The government has accused outsiders of whipping up the sectarian conflict, and the navy said it thwarted a weapons smuggling operation into the Malukus on Sunday.

A commercial ship docking at Ternate, in North Maluku province, carried 200 armed Muslim extremists, the navy said.

Officers on the KRI Multatuli, which had been part of the flotilla searching for survivors of the ferry disaster, said they dispatched a boarding party to search the suspicious-looking vessel.

The extremists, believed to be members of the Laskar Jihad paramilitary group, fled as the sailors arrived. Laskar Jihad is accused of infiltrating more than 2,000 Islamic fighters from elsewhere in Indonesia into the Malukus.

The boarding party uncovered a ''huge cache'' of military-style and homemade weapons, said Capt. Tri, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.