Twenty-four surviving passengers were admitted to hospital but dozensare believed still missing, said the local disaster agency.
The packed traditional wooden boat left Makassar, provincial capital ofSouth Sulawesi in the afternoon for a short journey to the resort island ofBarrang Lompo, some 15 kilometres northwest of the city's coast. The boatreportedly hit a large wave amid bad weather and capsized.
Makassar police said the boat was overloaded. The cause of the incidentis still being investigated.
According to statistics, almost 32 million Indonesians are on the movethis week in the annual Eid Al-Fitr exodus. It was the latest deadly maritimeaccident in Indonesia, which relies heavily on boats to carry people around its17,000 islands but has a patchy safety record.
On New Year's Day, nine people died after a passenger boat capsized whentravelling from the city of Tarakan to Tanjung Selor on Borneo island.-VNA