Jewel Topsfield and Amilia Rosa, Jakarta – Twenty-three people have been killed and at least 17 have been injured after a fire on board a ferry on the way to one of Indonesia's Thousand Islands, a popular tourist getaway for Jakartans, on New Year's Day.
Another 17 people are still missing after the Zahro Express, which was heading to Tidung Island, caught on fire, according to the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management. The ferry caught fire at 9.42am on January 1 after leaving Muara Angke Port in North Jakarta.
Thousand Islands police spokesman Ferry Budiharso said the number of casualties was at 23. He said three people died at Atma Jaya hospital and another 20 bodies were found on the boat.
Mr Ferry said the boat manifest had only listed 100 passengers on board, but 140 had already been rescued. "We suspect the boat was carrying more than the manifest," he said. "The joint team is still evacuating and conducting the rescue."
Aldi Munaldi, who was taking his family to Tidung island for a holiday, told television program Liputan 6 that the incident happened 20 minutes after the ferry left port.
"(The fire) started in the engine room in the back. Suddenly there was black smoke. We couldn't breathe." He said people, some of whom were wearing life jackets, started panicking and jumping overboard: "People screamed 'jump, jump'."
Mr Aldi, whose mother suffered burns, said the ferry later exploded. "My one year old is safe; I carried my child," he said. "We wanted to go for a holiday, but it turned out like this. We were drifting for 20 minutes at sea before... boats came and helped."
Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted the ferry was charred and severely damaged. It had been towed back to Muara Angke Port.
The Thousand Islands are a chain of islands off the north of Jakarta's coast, which are popular with tourists and Indonesians eager to escape the city. Ferries in Indonesia have a poor safety record with accidents common across the archipelago.
Last September two people died and 18 were injured after an explosion on a ferry travelling between East Bali and the Gili islands. And in June 2015, 25 passengers, including four Australians, were injured in a fire on a fast ferry travelling between Lombok and Bali.