A passenger boat named Marina Baru carrying 108 people, including 19 children and 10 crew members, capsized off Sulawesi Island in central Indonesia on December 19 after being hit by a storm.

The boat was en route from Kolaka in southeast Sulawesi to Siwa city in southern Sulawesi.

Local authorities said by 2:30 pm on December 20, at least 39 people have been rescued and three bodies recovered.

A rescue operation is underway for the ship in distress but bad weather conditions have hindered the work.

A rescued victim of the boat accident (Source: AFP/VNA)

This is not the first incident of its kind in the waters, as just on December 16, six Filipino crewmen went missing after their cargo ship collided with a chemical tanker and sank off Indonesia's Batam Island.

Back to 2009, a ferry with 300 passengers on board was struck by a tropical cyclone and sank off Majene, western Sulawesi.

In another development, on December 20, an Indonesian military plane crashed in Yogyakarta city on Java island, killing two pilots aboard.

Indonesian airport spokesman Dwi Badarmanto confirmed that the T-50 Golden Eagle fighter plane had crashed during a demonstration.

It remains unclear if anyone on the ground was killed or injured.

In July, a Hercules C-130 crashed into a residential area in Medan , the largest city on Sumatra island, killing 142 people.

(Source: VNA)