Five people have died with dozens more missing after a ferry caught fire off the coast of Indonesia.
A major search and rescue operation is underway after the vessel carrying 285 passengers and went up in flames just hours after departing a port in Surabaya heading for Makassar. The captain of the ship reported the fire – off Madura island – as the vessel sailed from the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya in East Java, to Makassar in South Sulawesi.
The national search and rescue agency Basarnas posted a video on TikTok, stating that at 8.24am local time the Surabaya Search and Rescue office was told that the KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2 was on fire.
It said: “Based on information from the shipping company, the fire occurred at around 06:00-07:00 (00:00-01:00 GMT).”
The statement told how passengers “held on to the ship’s bridge and bow while awaiting rescue” and that the vessel was “almost entirely engulfed in flames”.
Initial information stated there were around 285 people on board, consisting of 37 crew members and 248 passengers and the rescue mission was made more complicated by the ferry carrying flammable cargo.
Shocking footage shows huge plumes of thick black smoke billowing from the top decks and passengers jumping overboard, plunging into the sea to escape the flames.
At least four ships in the area came to the rescue to help people out of the water while Basarnas sent a rescue vessel but it had an estimated six hour time to reach the location.
Nanang Sigit, head of the Surabaya Search and Rescue Office, said: “TB Hasnur 26 and the British Mentor are assisting in evacuating passengers who jumped from KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2. Four vessels are now alongside the ferry.”
It comes after a fire on a ferry in Indonesia in July last year where at the time it was said three people were killed and 575 rescued, along with two people missing.
The KM Barcelona V-A caught fire in the sea off North Sulawesi province. Navy First Adm. Franky Pasuna Sihombing said the vessel was making its regular half-day journey between the ports of Melonguane and Manado when it caught fire.
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