Eyewitness: Java ferry survivor

Some survivors have been picked up by local fishermen

One of the passengers on board the sunken Indonesian ferry the Senopati Nusantara, a man called Nardi, has told the BBC about how he survived.

"When the ship rolled over I tried to break my cabin window. I broke the window and I was thrown out to the sea, there were a lot of things on top of me - debris, furniture and luggage.

"I was under water for almost 15 minutes. Because I wanted to survive, I struggled and came to the surface.

"I looked to the right and I saw that barely one meter of the ship's body could be seen sticking out of water. I was afraid the ship was going to explode, and I swam away as hard as I could.

"After 10 strokes I looked again and the ship was gone. After the ship sank, all I could hear were the cries and screams of passengers on the surface."

Hundreds of passengers are still missing. Rescue workers flying over the Java Sea in helicopters have reported seeing many people clinging to life rafts.

Nardi said conditions at sea were so bad that even those who made it onto the life rafts had difficulty surviving.

"The morning after the ship sank, I came across three people on a life raft. It was very small. And they were weak," he said.

"I think the mother died first. An hour later the father began to die too. I heard him screaming 'help, help, someone please help my child'.

"I tried hard to save the child. But the rain started to pour down. And so we were being tossed up and down.

"There were three very big waves. They dragged us down, and when we re-surfaced I saw the child was dead. I took his body and tied him to the raft using my trousers.

"After three hours the fishing boat came and rescued us. Since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about the child. I wanted to save him and bring him out alive. But God had a different plan."