A devastating maritime incident has unfolded off Indonesia’s Madura Island, where a passenger ferry carrying more than 250 people erupted in flames at sea, leaving at least five passengers dead and dozens more unaccounted for, according to Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, locally known as Basarnas.
The vessel, identified as KMP Mutiara Sentosa 2, was traveling along a busy domestic route when the fire broke out: it departed Surabaya, East Java – Indonesia’s second-largest city – en route to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi. The ship’s captain first alerted authorities to the emergency after the blaze took hold, according to Basarnas.
Timeline details released by the agency show that the Surabaya Search and Rescue office received the initial distress alert at 08:24 local time (02:24 GMT), though preliminary information from the ferry’s operating company places the start of the fire between 06:00 and 07:00 local time (00:00 to 01:00 GMT). By the time rescue teams were mobilized, the inferno had spread rapidly: Basarnas later confirmed that almost the entire vessel was engulfed in flames, leaving surviving passengers trapped on the ship’s bridge and bow as they waited for emergency assistance.
Footage captured from the scene documents the chaos unfolding as passengers fought to escape. Local Indonesian broadcaster iNews aired footage showing large groups of survivors wearing life jackets packed into rescue lifeboats. Other clips show desperate passengers climbing down the burning hull of the ferry, as thick black smoke and bright orange flames pour from the vessel’s upper decks. Additional video released by Basarnas on its official TikTok account shows some passengers jumping into the open ocean, while nearby rescuers throw lifebuoys to stranded people before pulling them aboard rescue craft.
As of the latest update from search and rescue officials, operations are still ongoing to locate the 41 missing passengers, while recovery teams have already recovered five bodies from the area around the burned vessel. Ferries remain a primary mode of inter-island transportation across Indonesia, an archipelago nation made up of thousands of separate islands, making maritime safety a persistent public safety priority for national authorities.