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JAKARTA, Aug 3: At least five people were killed and 41 others remained missing after a passenger ferry caught fire off Indonesia’s Madura Island, triggering a major search and rescue operation, authorities said.
The Mutiara Sentosa 2 ferry, carrying 271 people—including 232 passengers and 39 crew members—was travelling from Surabaya in East Java to Makassar in South Sulawesi when the fire broke out in the Java Sea on Sunday.
Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) said 225 people were rescued, while many passengers jumped into the sea to escape the flames.
Navy ships, tugboats and nearby commercial vessels joined the rescue effort to search for the missing.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the fire.
Maritime accidents are relatively common in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where ferries are a vital mode of transportation and safety standards are often under scrutiny.
Source: Reuters, Al Jazeera.