Eastern Island News

Several passengers on an Indonesian ferry jumped into the sea and swam ashore after authorities sought to block the vessel docking due to fears of suspected coronavirus cases, as tensions rise over the spread of the disease across the archipelago.The ferry traveling from via Indonesian Borneo and the island of Sulawesi was blocked when trying to make port in Maumere in the eastern island of Flores, amid fears three crew members on board had contracted the novel coronavirus.Passengers flung themselves into the sea in life vests and swam ashore as authorities debated whether the ship, the Lambelu, would be permitted to dock, an official said.“We ask for the passengers to cooperate with health protocols before disembarking from the ship and refrain from any actions that could be harmful,” Wis

Indonesian rescue teams continue their search todau (Monday) for 78 people still missing at sea, after their ferry ran into bad conditions, took on water and sank near Sulawesi island on Saturday night, officials said. Rescuers have pulled put 39 survivors and three dead from a passenger boat that sank in central Indonesia after being buffeted by high waves, and were battling bad weather Sunday to reach others still missing. Hopes are fading for 78 people still missing from a ferry that sank off Indonesia's eastern island of Sulawesi, officials say. The New Marina (Marina Baru), a fiberglass boat, was carrying 109 passengers and 10 crew members as crossed the bay on Saturday afternoon, from Kolaka, in Southeast Sulawesi province to Siwa, in South Sulawesi province.

Dynamic modeling of sea-level rise, which takes storm wind and wave action into account, paints a much graver picture for some low-lying Pacific islands under climate-change scenarios than the passive computer modeling used in earlier research, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report. A team led by research oceanographer Curt Storlazzi of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center compared passive "bathtub" inundation models with dynamic models for two of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Russia is expected to build four vessels to deliver oil and gas under the Sakhalin II energy project being implemented on Russia's Far Eastern island, RIA Novosti reported. The shipyard based in St. Petersburg, Russia's second biggest city, will build two ice-breaking tankers, and a shipbuilding plant in Primorye Territory in the Far East two more vessels under a 15-year contract between Sakhalin Energy and a Russian-operating affiliate of A.P. Moller-Maersk group. Sakhalin Energy, a Dutch-British-Japanese venture that is developing two vast fields with estimated recoverable reserves of 150 million metric tons of oil and 500 billion cubic meters of gas on Sakhalin, is expected to receive six vessels from the group in 2007.