Surabaya, Indonesia — A passenger ferry sailing between two of Indonesia’s major islands caught fire early Sunday morning, killing at least five people and leaving dozens more unaccounted for in one of the country’s latest maritime disasters.
The vessel, KM Mutiara Sentosa 2, was en route from Surabaya in East Java to Makassar in South Sulawesi when flames broke out between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time in waters off Sumenep regency, near Madura Island. According to Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), cited by The Associated Press, the ship was carrying 232 passengers, 39 crew members, and 181 vehicles — mostly trucks — along with an excavator.
How the Fire Unfolded
The ferry’s operator, PT Atosim Lampung Pelayaran, did not alert search and rescue officials until roughly an hour after the fire started. Contact with the captain was lost shortly after he reported the blaze near the northern tip of Madura Island.
By mid-morning, rescuers had located the burning vessel about 19 nautical miles north of Buruan Sapudi island with help from a nearby cargo ship, which could not approach directly because it was hauling flammable cargo, the AP reported. Video released by Basarnas showed thick black smoke pouring from the ferry as passengers in life jackets gathered on the deck, with some jumping into the sea to escape the flames.
A tugboat and another passing vessel began pulling people from the water and the ship shortly before 10 a.m. By Sunday evening, rescuers had recovered 227 survivors and five bodies, with dozens still unaccounted for.
One survivor, Ahmad Abdul Karim, said the fire appeared to start with a truck on the lower vehicle deck. He described being warned by someone from below and finding two vehicles already ablaze, after which passengers were quickly moved to the bow as wind spread the flames.
Confusion Over the Missing
The search continued into Monday, though officials said the true number of missing remained uncertain. Basarnas had initially put the figure at 41 based on the ship’s manifest, but authorities later acknowledged more people may have been aboard than the paperwork showed, and were relying on reports from relatives of passengers and survivors to fill in the gaps, according to Al Jazeera’s coverage of the rescue effort — echoing manifest discrepancies seen in past Indonesian ferry disasters.
Indonesia’s coordinating minister for infrastructure, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, ordered an immediate safety investigation into the incident, to be led by the National Transportation Safety Committee, Al Jazeera reported.
A Pattern of Maritime Disasters
Built in Japan in 1992 and previously operated on the Osaka-Shinmoji route, the 160-meter, 525-foot vessel was sold to Indonesia in 2015 and has since served the roughly 40-hour Surabaya-Makassar crossing, a route relied on heavily by domestic travelers and cargo haulers moving between Java and Sulawesi.
This is not the first fire linked to the ferry’s operator: a sister vessel, the Mutiara Timur I, sank after catching fire in 2022, and another, the Mutiara Berkah I, was destroyed by fire while docked in Cilegon in 2023.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where ferries remain a primary mode of transport between islands, sees maritime accidents with troubling regularity, with weak safety enforcement frequently cited as a contributing factor. The cause of Sunday’s fire has not been determined and remains under investigation.
