Indonesian authorities rescued 172 people on Wednesday after a ferry travelling from the tourist island of Bali caught fire in waters off Lombok, officials said, as the search continued for any other missing passengers.
It was unclear how the ferry caught fire, or whether overcrowding was a factor. The vessel was also carrying more people than its manifest showed. The incident took place in the Lombok Strait at 4:39 a.m. on Wednesday (2039 GMT Tuesday),Hariyadi told Reuters. The incident took place less than a month after another ferry, KM Mutiara Sentosa 2, caught fire off Madura island, killing five people.
The KM Putri Yasmin ferry left Padangbai port in Bali for Lembar port in Lombok in the province of West Nusa Tenggara, said Muhammad Hariyadi, the head of the local rescue agency. “We have deployed some boats to carry out the evacuation and coordinate with other boats surrounding the location of the incident,” Hariyadi said, adding that more than 200 personnel had been deployed to handle the operation.
