Five dead, 41 missing in Indonesia ferry fire

An Indonesian ferry caught fire at sea on Sunday, killing five people and leaving another 41 missing after some jumped overboard, search and rescue officials said.

A total of 225 people on the vessel were rescued, said the regional Surabaya Search and Rescue Agency, which provided the latest figures in an afternoon update.

Some passengers jumped into the sea and were picked up by a nearby ship, according to Basarnas, Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Four other vessels were on standby near the ferry but could not approach because of the risk posed by flammable material on the ferry, it said.

The captain had called the ferry company to report the fire as the vessel sailed from Surabaya in East Java to Makassar in South Sulawesi, Basarnas said.

The captain had not been in contact since then, it said.

A larger rescue operation was heading to the site from Surabaya, a six-hour journey from the site of the disaster, Basarnas said.

“Based on preliminary reports from the field, passengers are waiting to be evacuated by the vessels in the vicinity of the incident site,” said Muhammad Masyhud, a senior official at the Ministry of Transportation.

“The safety of passengers and crew is our top priority. We are continuously coordinating with all relevant parties to ensure that the evacuation process can proceed quickly, safely, and effectively,” he said in a statement.

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Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, partly due to lax safety standards and unpredictable weather.

A ferry transporting more than 70 people sank last month while sailing near Selayar, a small tropical island south of the much larger Sulawesi.

At least four people were found dead, and 14 others remained missing until the end of the search operation.