The fire that gutted a passenger ferry in the Philippines , killing at least 35 people, spread so fast that one man did not have time to get a life jacket as others stepped on him in panic.
Images provided by the coast guard showed the charred interior of the ship and what appeared to be human remains, ashes and burnt metal, including a car. Fifty-four people are still missing since the fire tore through the ferry Wednesday night (September 9, 2026) near southwestern Palawan province. There were 43 survivors.
“The fire quickly spread. That’s when I dropped to the ground and my back was burnt,” Arnulfo Nokki Villanueva recounted in a video broadcast by News5. People were in panic. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
On Friday (September 11, 2026), the death toll rose to 35 as more bodies were recovered. The ferry sailed from capital Manila and was around 7.4 kilometres off the village of Turda near its destination of Coron in Palawan province when the fire was reported. Because people were stepping on me, “I wanted to get a life jacket but failed to get one. Because of the heat and smoke, slowing efforts to search for passengers who may have been trapped, rescuers on Thursday (September 10, 2026) struggled to get inside the vessel.
He said that he jumped from a window. “It’s painful to think that your child was asking for help while she was burning alive,” Lira Daco said as she waited at a rescue centre in Turda for word about her missing 20-year-old daughter, Cyriel.
