Indonesian rescuers have found the bodies of 66 victims of a ferry sinking, state media said yesterday, but about 400 people remain missing after the vessel capsized in mountainous seas.

Survivors in Rembang, a town on the Central Java coast, told harrowing stories of the ship?s last moments and their struggles to put on lifejackets and get into lifeboats just before the Senopati Nusantara sank around midnight on Friday.

One survivor in Rembang told Reuters the ship had started to roll over after struggling in high seas and heavy rains.

?Suddenly the lights went off and it became dark. The ship?s crew tossed lifejackets ... some could not get any but I got one,? said Waluyo, 53.

?I tried to get into a rubber boat but many people also did the same thing, so the rubber boat was torn ... Finally, I grabbed the edge of another rubber boat.?

Waluyo said he did not know the fate of his two children, one a young adult and the other an infant, who were traveling with him.

The ship was heading from Kalimantan on Borneo to Semarang in Central Java. It is the second ferry disaster in as many days after a vessel overturned on Thursday night in rough seas off Sumatra.

Riyadi, Search and Rescue operational chief in Semarang, Central Java, told Reuters the ferry was carrying 628 people including 57 crew, according to the manifest.

State news agency Antara said the bodies of 66 on board had been located, many in waters and on beaches near Rembang. Earlier, only two deaths had been confirmed.

However, Rembang police official Aiptu Pitoyo Adi told Reuters that while fishermen who found the 66 assumed they were dead, some might be still alive but unconscious. Other officials said they did not have firm figures on numbers of bodies found.

The figure of known survivors reached 151 as of midday yesterday, Suharto, the director of the transportation ministry?s sea and coast guard, told Reuters. Rescuers have mobilized three navy ships, 12 speed boats, and several helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft for the search.

Asked how long the rescue effort would go on, Suharto said: ?At least nine days and it could be extended.? He also said some survivors might have been picked up by vessels traveling to ports that could take days to reach.

In the latest reported survivor findings, a search and rescue team located 14, one in critical condition. ?But because of bad weather and high waves about three to four meters, the victims have not been taken to the (beach)? for evacuation, coast guard officer Sugeng Rahorjo told Reuters.

Another survivor said massive waves battered the ship, scattering furniture in every direction. ?The crew told us to be calm and that nothing was going to happen. But at about 11:15 p.m. the ship began to turn over and then capsized,? Irfan told Metro TV. ?I was flushed out by water and I saw many people struggling to save themselves,? he said.

About 40 survivors were treated for minor injuries at a Rembang hospital before shifting to a temporary shelter to wait for relatives or find their own way home. Family members of missing passengers were in Rembang asking survivors and officials for any information about their loved ones.

Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa told the BBC Indonesian service late on Saturday that the Japanese-made 2,178-ton Senopati Nusantara was seaworthy and had a capacity of more than 850 passengers.

Ships and ferries are a popular means of transport among Indonesia?s 17,000 islands, where sea connections are cheaper than air routes. However, safety standards are not always enforced, and accidents occur fairly often.

An official at the national Search and Rescue office in Jakarta said that as of yesterday, two people who were on the ferry had died, 26 were still missing and 30 survivors had been found.