JAKARTA — One person was killed and 172 others were rescued after a passenger ferry caught fire in waters off Lombok island in Indonesia’s West Nusa Tenggara province, on Wednesday morning, local authorities said.The ferry was sailing from Padangbai port on the tourist island of Bali to Lembar port in Lombok when the fire broke out, according to the English-language daily Jakarta Globe.It was the second ferry fire reported in Indonesia over the past two weeks.Of the survivors, one was Australian and the rest were Indonesian. They were evacuated to ports in Bali and Lombok using several vessels, Muhammad Hariyadi, the head of the local rescue agency, More than 200 personnel were deployed to support the evacuation operation, while the search for possible missing passengers continued, Hariyadi added.The number of people on board is still being verified, as the manifest listed 114 passengers and 17 crew members, while the cause of the fire remains unknown.Five people were found dead and 41 went missing after an Indonesian ferry carrying at least 250 people caught fire while at sea on Aug. 2.The captain of the ship reported the fire off Madura island as the vessel sailed from the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya in East Java, to Makassar in South Sulawesi.
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