At least five people have died and more than 80 remain unaccounted for after a passenger ferry caught fire off the Philippine province of Palawan, the coast guard said on Thursday, as search and rescue efforts continued into a second day.
The blaze broke out aboard the MV June Aster on Wednesday evening, roughly 2.2 kilometres (1.3 miles) off the coast near a popular tourist destination in Palawan, according to Agence France-Presse.
Five bodies had been brought ashore, the coast guard said, though the toll could change as operations continue.
Coast Guard Captain Noemi Cayabyab told a local radio station that 42 people had been rescued so far, while 87 remained missing.
"Based on the data we have right now on rescued (42) and the casualties, we still have 87 people who are unaccounted for," she said, noting that the vessel's manifest had listed 134 passengers and crew in total.
Cayabyab cautioned that the figures were provisional. "Just to make it clear, this is live data and may change as our search and rescue operations are ongoing," she said. Of those rescued, 38 were passengers and four were crew members, she added.
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Officials said they had not yet been able to gather detailed accounts from survivors. "We have not yet been able to obtain information from the rescued individuals because we have not been able to speak with them," Cayabyab said, adding that firefighting efforts to fully extinguish the blaze were still under way.
Footage shared by the coast guard on Facebook showed the vessel engulfed in flames, with the fire visible from a distance in the darkness. Tracking data from MarineTraffic showed the June Aster had departed from Manila before the fire broke out.
Ferry disasters remain a recurring hazard in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands where sea travel is a primary mode of transport between provinces.
Authorities have not yet determined the cause of Wednesday's fire, and search operations for the missing were expected to continue through Thursday.
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