At least 31 dead including baby as horror ferry fire breaks out while passengers sleep forcing them to leap into water

AT least 31 people have died including a 6-month old baby after a fire broke out on a passenger ferry.

Authorities have yet to identify the cause of the fire that started close to 3pm on Wednesday off the island of Basilan in the southern Philippine.

AP

31 people have been reported dead after a fire broke out on a ferry in the Philippines[/caption]

AP

The Philippine Coast Guard is pictured spraying water on the blazing fire[/caption]

EPA

The burnt vessel sits on the shore of Basilan island, southern Philippines[/caption]

It has been reported that when the fire broke out, many of the passengers were asleep in air-conditioned cabins on the ferry’s lower deck.

“The number of people killed in a fire that ripped through a ferry in the southern Philippines has risen to 31”, the local governor said Thursday, after more bodies were found inside the burned-out wreckage.

“Initially there were 10 we recovered, they died of drowning. And then we discovered another 18 on board the vessel, at the cabin. They were totally burnt,” Commodore Rejard Marfe, coast guard chief in the southern Mindanao region, told Reuters.

There were conflicting figures on the number of passengers on the ferry, which was not overloaded, but the coast guard said 230 people including 35 crew were rescued.

Marfe earlier said most were sleeping at that time of the fire, adding “there was chaos”.

Firefighters brought the blaze under control early on Thursday.

Photos shared by the Coast Guard showed the MV Lady Mary Joy 3 ship was gutted by fire.

“I thought I was dreaming but when I opened my eyes, it was dark and we were surrounded by smoke,” Mina Nani, 46, told DZRH.

She said she survived by jumping off the vessel and shared a floater with another passenger before they were rescued.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, has a poor record for maritime safety, with vessels often overcrowded and many ageing ships still in use.

In May, at least seven people died after a fire in a high-speed Philippine ferry carrying 134 people.

In 1987, around 5,000 people died in the world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster, when an overloaded passenger ferry Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker off Mindoro island south of the capital, Manila.