Ferry and passenger boat accidents in Southeast Asia

Two separate ferry disasters in Indonesia and the Philippines over the past week have reignited scrutiny of maritime safety across Southeast Asia. Indonesia’s vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and the Philippines’ over 7,600 islands make passenger boats central to travel. In the Java Sea, a ferry carrying 243 people capsized; six died and 129 remained missing. In the Philippines, a ferry from Manila to Coron in Palawan caught fire, killing at least 76 people out of more than 130 aboard. Earlier this year, fires and capsizes in Indonesia and a capsized boat off Vietnam’s Phu Quoc killed multiple tourists.