At least 31 people died in a fire on a ferry in the Philippines on Thursday. In total there were about 250 people on the boat. The governor of the province of Basilan reports this to international news agencies. At least seven people are still missing.
The Philippine Coast Guard, navy and fishing boats have come to the rescue. Together they managed to save hundreds of people from the water. The boat was towed to shore, where Coast Guard personnel searched the wreckage. They found eighteen bodies of people who died in the fire in the cheapest cabins of the ship so far.
Philippine shipping disasters common
“Some of the passengers were awakened by the commotion caused by the fire,” Basilan Governor Jim Hataman told the AP news agency. Some of them jumped into the water from about three meters high.
Shipping accidents are common in the Philippines due to a combination of bad weather conditions, decrepit boats and poor safety controls. Moreover, Philippine boats are more than once unsafely packed with people. Whether that was also the case with the ship that caught fire on Thursday is not known.
The world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster also occurred in the Philippines. In 1987, the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker. More than 4,300 people were probably killed.