At least five dead, 41 missing after ferry catches fire off Indonesia

What the report says

At least five people were killed and 41 remained missing after a passenger ferry caught fire off Indonesia’s Madura Island, according to the country’s search and rescue agency, as reported by Al Jazeera. The vessel, Mutiara Sentosa 2, was traveling on Sunday from Surabaya in East Java province toward Makassar in South Sulawesi when the blaze broke out. Madura Island is located off the northeastern coast of Java.

The ferry was carrying 271 people in total — 232 passengers and 39 crew members — when the fire began. By Sunday afternoon, authorities said 225 people had been rescued, while search teams continued to look for those unaccounted for. Video released by Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency showed heavy smoke rising from the ship as passengers in life jackets waited for rescue.

The cause of the fire had not been determined at the time of the report. Maritime incidents are a recurring safety concern in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where transport accidents are often linked in general to uneven enforcement of safety rules and challenging weather conditions. The latest fire underscores the risks faced by inter-island travel in the country and the difficulty of search-and-rescue operations at sea.