CANBERRA, Australia — A crowded boat carrying asylum seekers to Australia capsized today and 125 survivors and one body were recovered from the Indian Ocean, less than a week after more than 90 people drowned on a similar journey.
An air and sea search was ongoing for as many as 20 people who could still be missing, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
Three merchant ships that responded to the capsizing rescued 125 people, and the authority said one body was recovered. The area is midway between Christmas Island and the main Indonesian island of Java.
The authority said up to 150 men, women and children may have been on the wooden Indonesian fishing boat.
Prime Minister Julian Gillard told Parliament that two Australian warships and an air force aircraft that can drop life rafts on the sea had joined the search by late today.
The area is 120 miles north of Australia's Christmas Island and 115 miles south of Java. The boat capsized in Indonesia's search and rescue zone but Australian authorities had raised the alarm, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Jo Meehan said.
The first merchant ship reached the scene more than four hours later, she said.
Last Thursday, 110 people were rescued when a boat carrying more than 200 mostly Afghan asylum seekers capsized only 15 miles from the latest tragedy. Only 17 bodies were recovered.
The survivors' refugee applications were being assessed at Christmas Island, where Australia runs an immigration detention center.
Australia is a common destination for boats carrying asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and other poor or war-torn countries.
In December 2010, an estimated 48 people died when an asylum seeker boat broke up against Christmas Island's rocky coast.
Last December, about 200 asylum seekers were feared drowned after their overcrowded ship bound for Australia sank off Java.
Other boats are suspected to have sunk unnoticed with the loss of all lives.
Last week's disaster rekindled debate in Parliament on how Australia should deter asylum seekers from risking the hazardous sea journey. The government wants to send new boat arrivals to Malaysia in exchange for accepting U.N.-recognized refugees living there. The opposition won't support the legislation because Malaysia has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention.
On Tuesday, Parliament began debating legislation that would enable the government to send asylum seekers to both Malaysia and the opposition's preferred option, Nauru.
Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare, who oversees ocean rescues, called for political compromise so that asylum seekers would learn that those who attempt to reach Australia by boat will not be allowed to stay.
"I believe that Australia has had a gutful of us fighting on this issue," Clare told Parliament. "They're sick of the politics, they're sick of hearing of more people dying, they're sick of us yelling at each other and they just want us to fix this."
But while the bill appeared likely to scrape through the House of Representatives, the minor Greens party has pledged to vote with the opposition to block it in the Senate.
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