Jakarta, January 28: An Indonesian ferry carrying a lot of passengers has caught fire killing at least eleven people and injuring almost 200 others.
The Laut Teduh 2 ferry was set ablaze at about 3 a.m. early Friday (20.30 GMT on Thursday) shortly after it left Merak port on Java Island for the neighboring Sumatra, the Associated Press reported.
According to Wiratno, the director for maritime passenger services in the Transportation Ministry, five ships were sent to launch a rescue operation and by late morning all the 427 people aboard the ferry have been brought to a place of safety.
The cause of the accident was not immediately known, but it is suspected by the passengers to have broken out due to a lit cigarette butt thrown on the deck floor.
However, Wiratno said a vehicle in the ferry might have caused the fire.
Poor safety standards and overcrowding have always caused accidents of the same type in Indonesia, where ferries are the most used means of transporting a large number of people commuting the 170,000 islands in the country of 235-million population.
——–Agencies