Five people have been killed and 41 are still missing after a ferry caught fire off Indonesia's Madura island, the country's search and rescue agency says.
The Mutiara Santos 2 was carrying 271 passengers and crew members, with 225 people rescued, said the regional Surabaya Search and Rescue Agency on Sunday evening. A search and rescue operation is ongoing.
The ferry was heading from Surabaya in East Java province to Makassar city in South Sulawesi.
It was unclear how it caught fire. Madura island is located off the northeastern coast of Java. Java and Madura are next to Bali.
Basarnas, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency also said some passengers jumped into the sea and were picked up by a nearby ship. Four other vessels were on standby near the ferry but could not approach because of the risk posed by flammable material on the ferry.
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The captain had called the ferry company to report the fire but had not been in contact since, Basarnas added.
A larger rescue operation was heading to the site from Surabaya, a six-hour journey from the site of the disaster, Basarnas said.
"Based on preliminary reports from the field, passengers are waiting to be evacuated by the vessels in the vicinity of the incident site," Muhammad Masyhud, a senior official at the Ministry of Transportation, said in a statement.
"The safety of passengers and crew is our top priority. We are continuously coordinating with all relevant parties to ensure that the evacuation process can proceed quickly, safely, and effectively."
Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, partly due to lax safety standards and unpredictable weather.
A ferry transporting more than 70 people sank last month while sailing near Selayar, a small tropical island south of the much larger Sulawesi. At least four people were found dead, and 14 others remained missing until the end of the search operation.
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