JAKARTA: Five people are dead and 41 others remain missing after a passenger ferry caught fire off the coast of Madura Island, Indonesian officials said Sunday.
The KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2 was carrying 271 passengers and crew from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city in East Java province, to Makassar in South Sulawesi when the fire broke out. The captain reported the blaze to the National Search and Rescue Agency while the vessel was at sea.
The fire is believed to have started between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time, approximately 19 nautical miles north of Sapudi Island. The Surabaya Search and Rescue office received the initial report at 8:24 a.m..
By Sunday afternoon, rescue teams had evacuated 225 people to safety. Basarnas, the national search and rescue agency, confirmed the ferry was "almost entirely engulfed in flames" and that passengers had gathered on the ship's bridge and bow while awaiting rescue.
Video footage broadcast by Indonesian news outlet iNews showed passengers wearing life jackets packed onto what appeared to be a lifeboat. Other clips showed thick black smoke billowing from the top of the vessel as people climbed down the ferry's sides to escape the flames. Some passengers could be seen jumping into the sea, where crowds in life jackets gathered and rescue crews threw lifebuoys before pulling them aboard rescue ships.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, officials said.
The search for the missing continues.
