Indonesia ferry fire kills five, leaves 41 missing

Five people died and 41 were missing after an Indonesian ferry caught fire at sea on Sunday, search and rescue officials said.

The regional Surabaya Search and Rescue Agency said in an afternoon update that 225 people on the vessel had been rescued. Basarnas, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, said some passengers jumped into the sea and were picked up by a nearby ship.

The ferry was sailing from Surabaya in East Java to Makassar in South Sulawesi when the captain called the ferry company to report the fire, Basarnas said. The agency said the captain had not been in contact since then.

Basarnas said four other vessels were on standby near the ferry but could not approach because of the risk from flammable material on board. It said a larger rescue operation was heading to the site from Surabaya, a journey of about six hours.

Muhammad Masyhud, a senior official at Indonesia's Ministry of Transportation, said passengers were waiting to be evacuated by vessels near the incident site, based on preliminary field reports.

Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, partly because of lax safety standards and unpredictable weather.