Five people have died and 41 are still missing after an Indonesian ferry caught fire at sea on Sunday, 2 August 2026. The ferry, called KM Mutiara Sentosa 2, was carrying 271 people when the fire broke out in the waters near Madura island, according to BBC News.

The ferry was traveling from Surabaya, a city in East Java, to Makassar, a city in South Sulawesi. This is a common route that crosses the sea between Indonesian islands. Ferries on this route usually travel overnight and carry both people and vehicles. The fire started near the northern coast of Madura, which is fairly early in the journey from Surabaya.

When the fire broke out, the captain contacted authorities for help. Indonesia's search and rescue agency, called Basarnas, launched a rescue operation. Indonesian news channel iNews broadcast footage showing passengers wearing life jackets and sitting in a lifeboat after getting off the burning ferry.

A local news outlet called Memorandum also reported on the fire the same day. It gave a slightly different passenger count — about 250 instead of 271. This kind of disagreement is common in the early hours of a major accident. The official passenger list and the actual number of people rescued often do not match until search teams finish counting everyone at a safe gathering point.

Basarnas is leading the search for the 41 missing people. In Indonesia, when a maritime accident happens, Basarnas sends rescue boats and works with local port officials and the Indonesian Navy. Whether the missing passengers are found alive will depend on the weather, ocean currents, and how much time passed before rescue teams arrived.

The video of passengers in life jackets suggests that at least some evacuation steps were followed. But it is still not clear how the fire spread, where it started — perhaps in the area where vehicles are stored or in a passenger section — or how much time passed before people were told to leave the ship.

The ferry's owner has not been named in the available reporting. The cause of the fire is also not yet known.

The broader context here is that Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 islands, and ferries are one of the main ways people and goods travel between them. The network is one of the biggest in the world. But ferries in this region often carry close to or more than their intended number of passengers, and safety rules have not always been strictly enforced. An accident of this size — 271 people on board, five dead, and 41 missing — raises familiar questions about whether safety inspections are working and whether passenger lists are being kept accurately.

In the coming days, the key things to watch are whether the missing passengers are found, whether the death toll rises, and what investigators learn about how the fire started. For now, the situation is still active and the facts are sobering.