Now Reading: One dead, 172 rescued after Bali ferry catches fire
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One dead, 172 rescued after Bali ferry catches fire
One person is dead and 172 have been rescued after the KM Putri Yasmin ferry caught fire in the Lombok Strait early on Wednesday, The Hindu reports. The ferry was travelling from…
The Story in Brief
One person is dead and 172 have been rescued after the KM Putri Yasmin ferry caught fire in the Lombok Strait early on Wednesday, The Hindu reports. The ferry was travelling from Padangbai port in Bali to Lembar port in Lombok when the fire broke out at 4:39 am local time. Among the survivors was one Australian; the rest were Indonesian. Authorities have deployed over 200 personnel and several boats for the operation. The cause of the fire is not yet known, and it is unclear whether overcrowding was a factor. The official manifest listed only 114 passengers and 17 crew, far fewer than the number actually evacuated. The search for any other missing persons continues.
The Indian Opinion
Tragic as it is, the KM Putri Yasmin fire is part of a pattern in Indonesia, not an aberration. The narrative that such accidents are inevitable overlooks the habitual under-counting of passengers, the manifest listed 131, but 172 were rescued. Last month’s fire on KM Mutiara Sentosa 2 showed the same gap. The concrete test will be whether the official investigation publicly reconciles the manifest with the actual number on board. That number will tell us if anything will change.
Source: thehindu.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
