Philippine ferry erupts in flames

Celia Hatton (0:00)

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Celia Hatton, and at 14 Hours GMT, on Thursday, the 10th of September, these are our main stories. A massive search operation is continuing in the waters off the Philippines, following an explosion on board a ferry. Dozens of people are missing. A port city in Yemen has just been captured by the Houthi rebel group, a major blow to the Yemeni government, which has been fighting the Houthis for more than a decade. We'll hear from the region. Also in this podcast, you might remember the excitement around the Artemis moon mission in April.

Reid Wiseman (0:39)

I have absolutely no idea what to say. This is 24 hours ago, the Earth was that big out the window and we were doing Mach 39 and here we are back in Ellington at home.

Celia Hatton (0:52)

Two of the astronauts involved with that say they won't be involved in spaceflight again. We'll tell you more.

Now to the Philippines. It's nighttime there as we record this podcast and rescuers are frantically searching for around 90 people missing after a passenger ferry caught fire after an explosion. Five have already been found dead. The ferry, the MV June Aster, is afloat but tilting heavily to one side. The Philippine Coast Guard has held a news conference. Its spokesperson, Commodore Naomi Kayabya, said thick smoke continues to billow from the vessel and that's preventing rescuers from boarding the ship.

Naomi Kayabya (1:33)

So, the challenge we are seeing right now is the strong winds, so that is limiting our response. No matter how much we put out the fire, there are external factors that could reignite fire. According to our Coast Guard station commander in the area, there are no longer flames inside the ship.

What we are taking into consideration is smoke in the ship. If our personnel get on board, they could be suffocated. So, we are ensuring the safety on the ship before we go on board.

Celia Hatton (2:02)

The Philippines is an archipelago of thousands of islands, so it's dependent on boat travel. Ferries are a cheap way to move people and cargo between islands, some of which are inaccessible by air. But as we'll hear, it also has a very bad record for deadly marine accidents.

Karen Lemma is the Reuters Bureau Chief in Manila. When I spoke with her, she began by telling me more about the news conference.

Karen Lemma (2:26)

The Philippine Coast Guard just ended a press conference a while ago where we heard from the spokesperson about their conversation with one of the survivors who reported hearing an explosion before the blaze quickly spread in the ferry.

That is the thing. It still remains unclear what caused it. She didn't want to speculate, obviously, on what might have, or the reason behind the explosion. So that is still a question that remains to be answered by the Philippine Coast Guard.

Celia Hatton (2:58)

And what more can you tell us about the rescue effort? Have emergency crews made it on board the ship yet?

Karen Lemma (3:05)

Interestingly, they have definitely deployed a lot of vessels. It's become a comprehensive rescue and search. The problem is, they could not approach the vessel at this point until the fire has been completely extinguished. I don't know if you've seen some of the drone footage that the Coast Guard has handed out, but you can see from these images how charred the vessel is, and there's still thick smoke that continues to billow from the vessel, making it difficult for the rescuers to attempt to enter the vessel. So that's complicating and hampering the rescue efforts. They're worried about the extreme heat that rescuers might experience, and they're also concerned that there might be explosions inside the vessel. So we're still waiting on that. According to the Coast Guard, they're hoping that they could do that before the end of the day.

But yeah, it's been complicated by that.

Celia Hatton (4:02)

Karen, why are marine accidents a recurring problem in the Philippines, a country that is so dependent on boat travel?

Ferry capsized in January, killing at least 65 people. Why can the authorities not get a handle on this issue?

Karen Lemma (4:19)

You know that the Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands. So inter-island travel is very common. A lot of people rely on it, the Gulf, as a means of transportation. And obviously, it's a cheaper option. But if we've seen the track record of the country, it's a bit patchy.

And a lot of it is due to overloading, overcrowding, lax regulations in terms of enforcement. But of course, we hear from officials that they've been trying to tighten this. They've been doing a lot of screening. And in fact, the Coast Guard official just told us today that the vessel actually passed a safety compliance assessment that they've conducted.