Survivors of a ferry sinking wait for help on their lifeboat in the seas off the coast of Central Java on Sunday. - Reuters photos

REMBANG (Reuters):

At least 200 people survived the sinking of an Indonesian ferry, the Health Ministry said on Monday, even as body bags were being prepared for victims and more than 400 remained unaccounted for.

Although confirmed deaths were in single digit, officials said corpses from the disaster overnight on Friday were scattered for miles on beaches along Java's coastline, and local media have reported at least 60 bodies found.

A survivor told Reuters he was surrounded by floating bodies after the sinking and many had also gone down with the ship.

At a hospital in Rembang in Central Java, Agung Subiarto, a medical team member said: "We have prepared 100 body bags to anticipate the possibility of (receiving) dead bodies."

Anxious and exhausted-looking relatives of passengers on the ship sat in a field in front of the hospital or in a large tent the army provided as they waited to see if their family members were brought in alive or dead, a Reuters photographer said.

According to the manifest, the Senopati Nusantara ferry was carrying 628 people, including 57 crew.

The number of survivors was at least 200, according to Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry crisis centre.

He told Reuters via text message that 130 survivors were in the East Java town of Tuban and 70 in Rembang.

Those numbers could go up as officials say some survivors have been picked up by ships headed for different ports.