Smoke billows from passenger ship Mutiara Santosa 2 after it caught fire in the waters off Madura Island, Indonesia, Aug. 2. AP-Yonhap
SURABAYA, Indonesia — Indonesian rescuers were searching for possible missing passengers Monday after rescuing 229 people from a ferry that caught fire the previous day in waters off the main island of Java, leaving at least five people dead.
The Mutiara Sentosa 2 ferry was traveling from Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java to the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi, and initial reports said it was carrying 232 passengers and 39 crew members, based on the ship’s manifest, when the fire broke out between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. in waters off Sumenep regency.
However, by Monday morning officials said many more people were aboard than listed, and that the number of people still missing was unclear after 229 people were rescued and five bodies recovered. Officials are relying on reports from the families of victims and survivors in an attempt to determine the number of those missing.
It is common in Indonesia for the number of passengers on a boat or ferry to differ from the manifest. Such discrepancies can reflect overcrowding and complicate search and rescue efforts, said Nanang Sigit, who heads the Surabaya Search and Rescue Office.
