Scores rescued but 400 missing from sunken ferry

RESCUE boats have picked up scores of exhausted survivors from an Indonesian ferry that sank in the Java Sea, but they also recovered dozens of bodies and around 400 people remain missing.

A fleet of navy ships, fishing vessels and aircraft has been scouring a large section of the central Indonesian coastline since the Senopati Nusantara capsized around midnight on Friday after being pounded by heavy waves for 10 hours.

Authorities had found 177 survivors who were either clinging to pieces of wood, packed into life rafts, or on beaches after swimming ashore, the state news agency Antara quoted a transport department official named Soeharto as saying.