Three dead, five missing as fishing boat catches fire in Malacca Strait
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Crew members rescued from a burning fishing boat arriving at Belawan Port in Medan, North Sumatra, on April 7.
PHOTO: KODAERAL I VIA THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
MEDAN – Rescuers are still searching for five fishermen who went missing after their boat, the KM Sumber Indah II, which had 21 people on board, caught fire while they were fishing in the Malacca Strait in the early hours of April 7.
Three fishermen died in the accident, while 13 others were picked up by the KM Mandiri, which was nearby when the fire broke out.
Navy Regional Command (Kodaeral) I chief spokesman Wahyu Kurniawan identified the three dead as fishermen Iyan, Jahar and Buitin.
The navy and the National Search and Rescue Agency are still looking for those missing, four of whom were identified as fishermen Aris, Roy, Lubis and Ambon. The fifth man was not identified.
“We are still searching for the missing fishermen,” Colonel Wahyu said on April 8.
The Sumber Indah II, skippered by Aisu, departed from Belawan Port on the afternoon of April 6 and headed eastward. After sailing 25.75km from the port, the boat stopped, and the crew deployed the trawl to catch anchovies.
Several hours later, the crew took a break.
At about 2am, explosions were heard in the engine room, believed to be in the main turbo, and a fire spread to the rest of the vessel.
Col Wahyu said that before the boat caught fire, a member of the crew, identified as Mr Aliman, noticed that the ship’s engine was overheating.
He tried to alert his crewmates, but before he could do so, there were several explosions in the engine room.
“The first explosion was from the overheated engine and (was) followed by a second explosion from a 12kg liquefied petroleum gas canister that was stored near the engine,” he said.
“The explosions caused the ship to catch fire.”
The crew jumped overboard to escape the fire.
About 30 minutes later, the Mandiri rescued 13 of them, while retrieving three bodies. Two suffered light burns.
The Mandiri brought the survivors and the three bodies to Belawan Port, arriving at about 8am.
Meanwhile, the head of the North Sumatra Water and Air Police’s law enforcement subdirectorate, Mr Hendri Barus, said the wreckage of the Sumber Indah II was being towed from the accident location to Belawan Port.
He said the police were still investigating the cause of the fatal fire.
“We are still investigating the case, and currently we are interviewing the surviving fishermen,” he said.
On Nov 13, 2025, a fishing boat docked at the Gabion fishing port in Belawan caught fire.
It took six trucks from the Medan Fire and Rescue Agency four hours to get the blaze under control.
“It was difficult to put the fire out because the fuel tank was fully loaded,” agency head Wandro Malau said, as quoted by jawapos.com.
“So, we had to deluge the lower part of the vessel to prevent it from exploding, which made it more difficult to extinguish the fire.” THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
