New Delhi, July 19 -- JAKARTA - A 7-year-old girl survived three days in the Banda Sea by clinging to jerry cans lashed with cork. She was one of five people pulled from the water on Saturday, the last survivors recovered from a wooden passenger ferry that sank with 78 people aboard six days ago off South Sulawesi.

The KM Nurul Salsa went down on July 16, around 43 nautical miles from the port at Selayar Island, after its engine failed. By the time the five were located, 47 other passengers had already been brought ashore, one person had died, and more than 20 remained unaccounted for.

Muhammad Arif Anwar, the local search and rescue official overseeing the operation, described what the survivors had done immediately after the vessel we...