17 dead in Indonesian ferry inferno
Pastor Dale Morgan
Friday February 23, 1:43 AM
*17 dead in Indonesian ferry inferno*
At least 17 people died but more than 200 were rescued on Thursday after
fire engulfed a ferry carrying some 300 passengers and crew shortly
after it left the Indonesian capital.
Three children were among the dead and dozens of survivors suffered
burns and other injuries fleeing the Levina I car ferry as it billowed
huge clouds of thick, black smoke.
Television pictures showed fires burning in several locations, including
on the car deck. Flames had scorched the vessel's superstructure and
burnt off most of the paint.
Seventeen bodies had been recovered, Indonesian Red Cross official Mega
told AFP from Jakarta's Tanjung Priok harbour where the survivors and
victims were brought in.
The transport ministry earlier said 16 people were killed, 274 were
rescued and 17 were still missing from the 307 on board.
Ferry captain Andi Kurniawan was being interrogated in the Thousand
Islands region where the ship sank, local police chief Agung Setiatno
told ElShinta radio. He was earlier reported to be among the dead.
Five navy warships and two aircraft were dispatched to help the
evacuation and rescue, along with a fire-fighting tug boat, in a
large-scale response after a ferry sank killing more than 300 in December.
The blaze broke out in the early hours of Thursday when the Levina I was
about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from shore in the Bay of Jakarta after
leaving Tanjung Priok harbour.
Port administrator Captain Sato said the fire may have started in a
truck carrying chemicals.
"The fire became bigger when they tried extinguishing it with water," he
told MetroTV.
The ferry's sister ship, the Levina II, rescued 211 of the survivors,
Western Fleet spokesman Hendra Pakan told ElShinta.
Port spokesman Hambar Wiyadi told the radio station he had seen "two
children and one baby" among the dead on shore.
Dozens of survivors suffered burns. The most severe cases were taken to
hospital while others were treated in the waiting room at the port.
Emergency workers and port officials helped carry injured survivors off
the rescue ships.
Reza Syaihoni described how she and other passengers leapt overboard to
escape the smoke and flames.
"When the smoke finally was making it hard to breath, I jumped into the
sea. It was about 15 metres (50 feet) to the sea surface," she said on
MetroTV.
"Other passengers had jumped before me. I held on to a piece of wood ...
other people were holding on to a wood plank, a child was on it," she said.
"Three hours later when the sun rose, a fishermen's boat saved us. We
waited for the bigger boats to come, we were then moved to the Filipino
ship, the Princess Vanessa."
Another survivor, whose husband was hospitalised with severe burns,
described how she and her family fled the inferno.
"It was 5:00 am when I heard people screaming 'fire, fire', we all took
life jackets and went on the life raft. All six of us survived," she
told ElShinta.
The ferry had been sailing for Pangkalan Balam on Bangka island off the
coast of Sumatra, 500 kilometres north of Jakarta.
Ferries are a crucial link between the archipelago nation's 17,000
islands and frequently carry more people than officially acknowledged.
The fire was the latest in a string of transport accidents in Indonesia,
which have killed more than 450 people in the past two months.
A ferry with some 600 people on board sank in rough weather off the
north coast of Java island late on December 29 with more than 300 people
still missing and presumed dead.
Just a couple of days later, an Adam Air plane crashed in the sea off
Sulawesi island with all 102 people on board presumed dead.
The spate of accidents has prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
to form a team to evaluate and improve transport safety.
Lax enforcement of safety regulations, poor maintenance and a lack of
investment in transport infrastructure have been blamed for the air, sea
and rail accidents, which have become a regular occurrence.