Fire kills 28 persons on Philippine Passenger Ferry

A fire on an inter-island passenger ferry in the Southern Philippines killed at least 28 people, including a 6-month-old baby, according to the coast guard on Thursday.

Authorities have yet to determine what caused the fire, which broke out near 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Wednesday off the island of Basilan, while many passengers were sleeping in air-conditioned cabins on the ferry’s lower deck.

Coast guard chief in the southern Mindanao region Commodore Rejard Marfe, said “Initially there were 10 we recovered, they died of drowning. And then we discovered another 18 on board the vessel, at the cabin. They were totally burnt.”

There were conflicting figures on the number of passengers on the ferry, which was not overloaded, but the coast guard said 230 people including 35 crew were rescued.

Marfe earlier said most were sleeping at that time of the fire, adding “there was chaos.”

Firefighters brought the blaze under control early on Thursday.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, has a poor record for maritime safety, with vessels often overcrowded and many aging ships in use.

In May, at least seven people died in a fire on a high-speed ferry carrying 134 people.

In 1987, about 5,000 people died in the world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster, when an overloaded passenger ferry Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker off Mindoro island south of the capital, Manila.