Five dead, dozens missing in Philippines ferry fire

A fire broke out on Wednesday evening aboard the M/V June Aster while the ferry was near Coron in the Philippine province of Palawan, the coastguard said. Video the coastguard posted on Facebook showed large areas of the vessel engulfed in flames; officials reported the ship later sank roughly 2.2 km (1.3 miles) offshore.

Coastguard Captain Noemi Cayabyab told local media on Thursday that five casualties had been brought ashore and that 42 people had been rescued so far, according to the AFP news agency. Based on the vessel’s manifest, which listed 134 passengers and crew, Cayabyab said 87 people remained unaccounted for, though she cautioned those figures were live and could change as search-and-rescue operations continued.

Of the people rescued, Cayabyab said 38 were passengers and four were crew members, and added that authorities had not yet been able to obtain information from those brought to safety. The Reuters news agency separately reported a slightly different figure of 43 people rescued as of Wednesday night. Reports so far have not identified a cause for the blaze, and attempts to extinguish the fire were ongoing when officials issued updates.

Sea accidents occur frequently in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands that faces regular monsoon rains and typhoons. Past investigations and reporting have pointed to factors such as poor vessel maintenance, overcrowding and uneven enforcement of safety regulations as contributors to maritime disasters; in January, a ferry carrying over 350 people sank off Baluk-baluk island, killing at least 18.