SURABAYA (Reuters/AFP): Indonesian rescuers have evacuated all 233 surviving passengers and crew trapped on a ferry that caught fire off the country’s Madura island, the search and rescue agency said on Aug 4, with the death toll at five.
The Mutiara Sentosa 2 was travelling from Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java province to Makassar city in South Sulawesi when it caught fire on Aug 2, the authorities had said.
Mohammad Syafii, chief of the country’s search and rescue agency, told reporters that rescuers determined that the total number of people in the ferry’s manifest stood at 238, comprising passengers and crew members.
The authorities said earlier on Aug 3 that the total number of passengers and crew stood at 271. Throughout the search operation, numbers cited by officials of passengers who had boarded the ferry and of those missing had fluctuated wildly.
An investigation into the cause of the fire, which killed five people, is under way, Syafii said.
While all the passengers and crew on the manifest have been accounted for, the authorities may resume the search if there are family reports of relatives who have not been found, he said.
All clad in life jackets, the passengers were stranded for hours at sea, while some fell into the water from a 10m height, Syafii added.
On Aug 3, survivors told reporters they had heard multiple blasts moments before a fire broke out, prompting those on board to jump into the sea.
Indonesia, an archipelago of around 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.
However, safety standards are not always strictly enforced, and accidents are relatively frequent. -- REUTERS, AFP
