INDONESIA: Indonesian minister announces probe into ferry fire.

Indonesia's transport minister announced he has launched an investigation into a ferry fire that killed 11 in Jakarta Bay, the latest transportation incident in the country after another ferry capsized and a passenger plane crashed into the sea in the archipelago over the last two months. Indonesia's transport minister said late on Thursday (February 22) authorities have started investigating a ferry fire that killed 11 in the Jakarta Bay. Indonesian transport minister Hatta Radjasa flew in a naval helicopter with officials to survey the burning hulk of the ferry in Jakarta Bay. "The incident will investigated by National Commission of Safety Transportation. The ship had just docked a month ago for routine inspection," Radjasa told reporters when he landed in Jakarta after the aerial survey. The Levina I was on its way to Bangka island off Sumatra when it caught fire soon after dawn 50 miles (80 km) from Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port. Television footage of the stricken vessel showed huge plumes of thick black smoke emerging from the ferry's lower decks. Officials said information so far indicated 226 people had survived including 15 crew. Passenger numbers on Indonesian ferries are frequently inaccurately recorded on manifests, and officials sometimes turn a blind eye to overcrowding. One of the first survivors to be brought back to Jakarta described panic when the crew told passengers a fire had broken out in the lower deck loaded with motorcycles and cars. The survivors were rescued and taken by a cargo ship, the Princess Vanessa to Tanjung Priok port. The rescuers also brought back several bodies in body bags. The port was crowded with anxious relatives of the passengers, as ambulances and paramedics stood ready to treat the survivors. A visibly shocked woman was comforted by a relative. "The fire was raging from the back of the ship and it was getting bigger and bigger," said Poniyem, who survived the fire. Another survivor Muhammad Badri, described the fire and the ensuing chaos. "It was a quarter to five a.m. when the fire spread and started burning the lower deck and it went on to the middle deck and direct to the third deck. We ran to the upper deck and scrambled for life vests," Badri said. Ferries are a popular means of transport among the 17,000 islands of Indonesia, where sea connections are cheaper and more available than air routes. But safety standards are not always strictly enforced and accidents occur fairly often. A ferry carrying around 600 passengers capsized in late December off Java island and more than half its passengers are believed to have died. That disaster was followed by the disappearance on New Year's Day of a Boeing 737-400 operated by budget airline Adam Air with 102 people on board. The evidence suggests that plane crashed into the sea off western Sulawesi in bad weather. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has set up a task force to examine the country's shoddy transport system. JM/JRC

ITN Source | February 22, 2007

Tags:. .disaster. .survey. .blind. .raging. .princess