JAKARTA ¨C Indonesian authorities rescued more than ?200 people on Wednesday after a ferry traveling from the tourist island of Bali caught fire in waters off the island of Lombok, officials said, as the search continued for any ?other missing passengers.
By Wednesday afternoon, one Indonesian had been ?confirmed dead, ?among the 212 people who had been ?evacuated to ports in Bali and Lombok, Muhammad Hariyadi, ?head of the local rescue agency,?said. The majority of evacuees were Indonesian, with one Australian national.
The KM Putri Yasmin ferry had left Padangbai port in Bali for Lembar port, ?Hariyadi said. It ?was unclear how the ferry caught fire, ?or whether overcrowding ?was a factor.
The ?incident took place less than a month after another ferry, KM Mutiara ?Sentosa 2, caught fire off Madura island, killing five people. The vessel was carrying ?more people than its manifest ?showed.
¡°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.
The incident took place in the Lombok Strait at 4:39 a.m. on Wednesday, Hariyadi said.
Earlier in ?the ?day, an official at Padangbai port in ?Bali, Heri Wiyanto, told local broadcaster Kompas TV that only ?114 passengers and 17 crew were registered in the ferry¡¯s manifest.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, relies heavily on ferries as a key mode of transportation, with ?sea routes more affordable and readily available than air travel.
However, safety standards are not always rigorously enforced, resulting in a relatively high rate of accidents.
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