JAKARTA: At least one person has died and dozens are missing after a ferry carrying 80 people was capsized on Monday in Indonesia, an official from the national disaster agency said. This is the second such incident in two weeks.
"Eighteen passengers have been rescued, one is dead," said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. Authorities have deployed rescue vessels to the scene but bad weather has halted the operation for the night.
"The evacuation has been halted due to bad weather. The visibility is only 30 metres," local police chief Marudui Liberti Pandjaitan told a local TV channel.
The boat overturned in Lake Toba in the province of North Sumatra, more than 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) northwest of the capital Jakarta.
Authorities believe the craft was operating illegally with no manifest and the passengers had not been given tickets.
Last week, a traditional wooden boat with about 40 people capsized in the island of Sulawesi, killing more than a dozen people.
Muslim-majority Indonesia has been celebrating the Islamic festival of Eid since Friday and millions go on holiday during the festivities, with Lake Toba a popular tourist destination.
The sinking is the latest in a string of deadly maritime accidents in the vast Indonesian archipelago, which relies heavily on boats to ferry people around its 17,000 islands but has a poor safety record.
In 2017, a tourist boat on the resort island of Bali exploded, killing two foreigners and injuring about 20 others.