Social media videos show terrified passengers jumping into sea as flames and black smoke billow from burning vessel.
Three people have died and more than 500 others have been rescued after a ferry caught fire off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, emergency officials said.
Passengers jumped overboard the KM Barcelona 5, as it sailed from Melonguane port in Talaud Islands district towards the city of Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, after the fire broke out on Sunday, said the Indonesian coastguard.
Photos and videos circulated on social media showed terrified passengers, mostly wearing life jackets, jumping into the sea as orange flames and black smoke billowed from the burning vessel.
A video released by the Manado rescue agency showed a coastguard vessel spraying water on the ferry, which was emitting black smoke.
Indonesian authorities previously reported five people died in the accident, but later revised the death toll to three after two passengers initially reported as dead were saved in a hospital, including a two-month-old baby whose lungs were filled with seawater.
At least 568 people were rescued from the ferry, the national search and rescue agency said in a statement on Monday.
A coastguard ship, six rescue vessels and several inflatable boats were deployed in the rescue operation, Franky Pasuna Sihombing, chief of the Manado navy base, told The Associated Press news agency.
According to officials, the blaze is believed to have started on the upper deck.
“Until now, the joint rescue team is still conducting the search and rescue operation because the data is still developing,” Manado rescue agency head George Leo Mercy Randang told the AFP news agency on Monday. “Our post is still open 24 hours a day, in case families want to report about their missing relative.”
One survivor described waking up to smoke filling the passenger deck.
“The air was full of smoke and everyone started panicking,” Johan Rumewo told Kompas TV after being evacuated to Manado port. “I managed to grab a life jacket and jumped into the sea. I floated for about an hour before being rescued.”
The ferry’s log had registered only 280 passengers and 15 crew on board. Local media reported that the ship had a capacity for 600 people.
Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago of about 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards or bad weather.
Sunday’s fire came just weeks after another ferry sank off the popular resort island of Bali due to bad weather, killing at least 19 people.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring another person. In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra Island.
