Below deck on their submarine, Indonesian sailors crowded around a crewman with a guitar and crooned a pop song called “Till We Meet Again.”

Weeks later, the same sailors vanished deep beneath the Pacific Ocean while descending for a torpedo drill, setting off a frantic international search. Indonesian military officials said on Sunday, four days after the vessel disappeared, that it had broken into three pieces hundreds of meters below the surface, leaving no survivors among the 53 crew members.

Now, the video of the submariners singing is resonating across Indonesian social media, in a nation where many people are jaded by a steady stream of bad news: devastating earthquakes, erupting volcanoes and sinking ferries.

composed the song, wrote on Instagram below a clip of the sailors’ performance.

paid their respects to the spirit world, consulting with seers or collecting what they believed were magic tokens, for example.

told The New York Times in 2018 that he made a point of incorporating local wisdom and traditional beliefs while communicating the science of disasters.

“The cultural approach works better than just science and technology,” Mr. Sutopo said. “If people think that it is punishment from God, it makes it easier for them to recover.”

The latest diaster struck last week, when a 44-year-old submarine, the Nanggala, disappeared before dawn during training exercises north of the Indonesian island of Bali. Search crews from the United States, India, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore later helped the Indonesian Navy hunt for the vessel in the Bali Sea.

For a few days, naval experts worried that the sub might run out of oxygen. Then the navy confirmed over the weekend that it had fractured and sank to a deep seabed.

Among the items a remote-controlled submersible found at the crash site was a tattered orange escape suit.