Rescuers battled high waves on Sunday as they searched for 200 asylum seekers feared dead after their overcrowded ship sank off Indonesia's main island of Java.
Local television showed a half-dozen survivors at a shelter in Trenggalek, the Javanese town closest to the scene of the sinking, some with dazed, empty expressions as they sat on the floor drinking and eating.
Several others were taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition.
At Prigi, the nearest port, several members of the national search and rescue team were getting ready to head out to sea. Weather was bad on Sunday and four fishing boats, two helicopters and a navy ship already involved in the operation were battling 4m high waves.
"Until now we have not received contact from the boats we sent out this morning," said Kelik Enggar Purwanto, a member of the search and rescue team, as horrifying accounts emerged of the disaster. "We hope that this evening the boats will be back at Prigi port."
The stricken boat was packed with 250 people fleeing economic and political hardship in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey was heading to Australia when it ran into a powerful storm 32km off Java's southern coast.
Indonesia, a sprawling nation of 240 million people, has more than 18,000 islands and thousands of miles of un-patrolled coastline, making it a key transit point for smuggling migrants.
Many risk a dangerous journey on rickety boats in hopes of getting to Australia, where they face years in crowded, prison-like detention facilities. Australia's harsh immigration policy has loosened up in recent months, however.
Those on the ship that sank on Saturday had passed through Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, days earlier without any legal immigration documents, according to police.
An unidentified group loaded them onto four buses and took them to a port, promising to get them to Australia's tiny Christmas Island.
Last month, a ship carrying about 70 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan capsized off the southern coast of Central Java province, and at least eight people died.
APTN