Indonesian rescuers search for 140 missing after ferry loses contact in Java Sea

In the early hours of a Sunday morning, a ferry carrying more than 240 souls vanished into the Java Sea after radioing distress from a storm, leaving 140 people unaccounted for even as rescuers pulled 103 survivors from the water. The Virgo Transport 8 had been threading a familiar route between East Java and South Kalimantan — a passage millions of Indonesians depend upon, for the sea is the road that binds an archipelago of 17,000 islands together. One life was lost in the rescue itself, and the fate of the missing remains unresolved, a reminder that the infrastructure of connection carries