A fire broke out on an Indonesian ferry carrying hundreds of passengers crossing the sea, resulting in 5 confirmed deaths and dozens reported missing. The incident involved a ferry transporting several hundred people across the water, leading to fatalities and many missing.
On Sunday, 2 Aug 2026 GMT+7, officials from Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) reported a severe fire on a ferry carrying at least 250 passengers. The blaze caused at least 5 deaths and left 41 others missing.
Basarnas stated that the ship's captain reported the fire while the ferry was off the coast of Madura Island during a voyage from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city in East Java province, to Makassar in South Sulawesi province.
Video footage released by iNews, a local Indonesian news outlet, shows many people wearing life jackets on what appears to be a lifeboat. Other clips reveal passengers jumping from the ferry engulfed in flames and smoke, with lifebuoys thrown to those floating in the sea before being rescued by emergency boats.
Basarnas posted a video on TikTok with a statement saying that at 08:24 local time on Sunday, the Surabaya Search and Rescue Center received reports of a fire aboard the passenger ferry KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2. "According to the shipping company, the fire began between approximately 06:00 and 07:00."
Later, Basarnas confirmed that the ferry was "almost entirely engulfed in flames" while "passengers clung to the bridge and bow area awaiting rescue." The exact cause of the fire on the ferry remains unknown.
/news/internationalhttps://www.thairath.co.th/news/foreign
Source:BBC