Fire on Philippines Ferry, 550 Safe

A ferry carrying around 550 people caught fire while docked at Ormoc Port in the Philippines on Saturday morning.

The vessel, MV Wonderful Stars, was reported to have thick smoke emanating from the engine room shortly after it arrived from Cebu City.

Fire engines arrived on the scene, but fire-fighting efforts have been hampered by the presence of fuel in the vehicles on board, so firefighting is ongoing.
 
The passengers were disembarked safely. Three injured crew members were sent to Ormoc City hospital for medical treatment of minor injuries incurred while combating the fire. There were no reported casualties amongst the passengers.

The MV Wonderful Stars is operated by Roble Shipping Line.

This was the second ship accident in Ormoc in two months. On July 2, over 60 people were killed when the Nirvana-B capsized shortly after it left Ormoc port en route to Cebu.