77 dead, eight still missing from Palawan ferry fire

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has verified that four passengers listed in the ticket manifest of the MV June Aster did not board the vessel, reducing the number of persons confirmed onboard to 128 and leaving eight individuals still missing.

In a statement on Thursday, PCG spokesperson Commodore Noemie Cayabyab said the four passengers confirmed they did not board the vessel before its departure from Baseco Port on Sept. 8.

The passenger-cargo ferry caught fire on Sept. 9 off the coast of Coron, Palawan, resulting in 77 deaths.

At around 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 15, the Emergency Operations Center in Coron received information that the four passengers had not boarded the vessel. The PCG located and physically verified all four on Sept. 16.

"Based on the verification, three of the four individuals said they had intended to book tickets from Coron to Manila but mistakenly booked the opposite route, from Manila to Coron," Cayabyab said.

"The fourth passenger had booked another ticket and had already traveled to Coron via another passenger vessel on Sept. 5," she added.

After continuing verification and reconciliation of the ticket manifest, the PCG revised the number of persons confirmed to have been onboard the MV June Aster from 132 to 128.

As of Sept. 16, the updated figures are 128 persons onboard, 77 fatalities, 43 survivors and 8 missing.

The PCG said it continues to verify and reconcile passenger information as part of the ongoing accounting of all individuals listed in the vessel's ticket manifest.

-Philippine News Agency