The Albany Gazette - Philippine Coast Guard finds bodies aboard ferry after blaze

The bodies were found in the economy accommodation area of the M/V June Aster, which ran aground near the tourist hotspot Coron, Palawan after a fire erupted on Wednesday.

Five people have been confirmed dead, but the figure is now sure to grow.

"We can't provide exact numbers yet on what we saw today," coast guard spokeswoman Commodore Noemie Cayabyab told AFP in a phone call.

"We will be providing it once we conduct retrieval and recovery," she said, saying a meeting was underway to determine the proper protocols for that process.

Cayabyab added that the entire ship had now been searched.

Earlier in the day, she had told a radio station that the fire, which began in the cargo hold, had gone through the ship within seconds.

"From the time that they heard the loud explosion, the appearance of smoke, and then fire. It spread very quickly," she said of survivors' accounts

"Everything happened in seconds," she said, adding that those who made it off the ship had not even had time to put on life jackets.

- 'Lost hope' -

Police investigators, explosive ordnance disposal experts and army personnel boarded on Friday afternoon a pair of small rubber boats to head to the ship, grounded on a small island off Coron.

Nearby, a covered basketball court served as a staging area for social workers and security personnel, while police tape cordoned the area off from members of the public.

A member of the police investigative unit could be heard asking a colleague if "the body bags are there".

Near the wharf, a family member of one of the missing wept as she stared out to sea.

Myra Cabilan told AFP she had flown to Coron to find her missing brother, 40-year-old Rammel Gonzaga, who had taken the ferry from Manila on a business trip with his brother-in-law.

"His wife had just given birth a month ago. He was so happy he was given a daughter," Cabilan said, fighting back tears.

"At dawn, I still believed he survived. But he's still missing. I have lost hope."

Hundreds of people desperate for news about the incident have taken to leaving comments on the Facebook page of a local mayor, searching for relatives, friends and even a dog.

- A history of disasters -

The ferry's manifest listed 134 crew and passengers, but two had not boarded, according to the coast guard. The ferry was also carrying goods, an electric vehicle, a pickup truck, and motorcycles.

Thirty passengers and 13 crew have been rescued, and as of Friday morning 84 people were unaccounted for.

The archipelago nation of 116 million has a long history of disasters involving the inter-island ferries that ply its seas.

Many rely on cheap and poorly regulated boats and ships for transport between the country's more than 7,000 islands, despite regular accidents.

In January, a triple-decker ferry carrying more than 340 people sank off the southern Philippines, killing at least 52 people.

The M/V Trisha Kerstin 3 sank along nearly the same route where 31 people died in 2023 after a fire broke out aboard the Lady Mary Joy 3 ferry.

On Thursday, the company that owns the M/V June Aster, Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc, said it was fully cooperating with the investigation.

(P.Davis--TAG)