Philippine Ferry Fire Kills at Least 28, 7 missing

At least 28 people have died including a 6-month old baby after a fire broke out on an inter-island passenger ferry in the southern Philippine, according to the coast guard on Thursday.

Authorities have not yet determined the cause of the fire, which started around 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Wednesday off Basilan Island, when many passengers were sleeping in air-conditioned cabins on the lower deck of the ferry.

"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 numbers on the number of passengers on the ferry, which was not overloaded, but the coast guard said 230 people were rescued, including 35 crew members.

Marfe said earlier that most of them were asleep at the time of the fire, adding, "There was chaos."

Firefighters brought the fire under control early Thursday morning.

Pictures shared by the Coast Guard showed that the MV Lady Mary Joy 3 had been engulfed in flames.

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

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

In 1987, some 5,000 people perished 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.