Philippine Ferry Fire: Toll Jumps to 35, Dozens Still Missing

In Coron, Lira and Menandro Daco stood on the dock and waited for word of their missing daughter as covered stretchers were carried off boats and into waiting vehicles.³¹ Around them, other families did the same, watching the same blackened hull that had held their people drift offshore for two days before anyone could get inside.⁶ By Saturday, September 12, the wait had hardened into the worst arithmetic of the week: at least 35 confirmed dead, with 53 to 54 people still unaccounted for.⁴²⁸ Officials warned the toll will keep rising as recovery continues.⁴

The vessel at the center is the MV June Aster, a 490-gross-ton roll-on, roll-off passenger ferry operated by Atienza Interisland Ferries.²⁹⁶ It left Manila bound for Coron, the tourist town in the western province of Palawan, carrying 134 people in all — 117 passengers and 17 crew.¹²²⁸ At about 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, fire broke out off Barangay Marcilla, Coron.²⁹²⁷ What began as a routine overnight crossing to a leisure destination became a two-day burning that no rescue crew could enter.¹⁰²

For more than 40 hours, the Philippine Coast Guard could not reach the people it needed to save.²¹⁰ Thick, continuous smoke poured from the hull and rough seas pitched the rescue vessels back, keeping them at a distance and blocking any attempt to board.⁷¹⁰ The Coast Guard said Thursday it had not declared “fire out,” which by policy prevented rescuers from climbing aboard.⁹⁵ Images released by the Coast Guard showed smoke still curling from the charred vessel drifting off Coron, its hull blackened, coast guard boats holding at its stern.²⁶ Only when the blaze was finally declared out at 10:15 a.m. Friday did rescuers board to search for the missing.⁵¹⁰

What they found inside rewrote the casualty count in a single morning.³¹⁸ The first reporting had put the dead at five and the missing at roughly 90, with 43 people pulled out alive.¹²¹ After firefighters finally entered the hull, they recovered at least 30 badly burned bodies, pushing the confirmed toll from five to 35.³¹⁸ The 43 rescued — 30 passengers and 13 crew, many taken to hospital — did not change, but almost everything else did.²⁸⁶ A survivor told reporters of being trampled in the rush to escape as fire took hold.³⁴

The missing figure has been revised repeatedly, and the revisions matter because they did not all come from rescue.⁸¹² A Coast Guard tally first put the missing at 86, then revised it to 84 after two people listed on the manifest were found never to have boarded — meaning the count of the unaccounted-for fell for reasons that had nothing to do with saving lives.⁸⁷ As of September 12, authorities said 53 to 54 remained unaccounted for out of the 134 aboard while the confirmed death toll stood at 35.²⁸⁶ The gap between those numbers is the space where families like the Dacos are still waiting.³¹

The sharpest contradiction is the safety picture.²⁵ The Coast Guard said the vessel had passed its mandatory safety inspections and was not overcrowded — 134 people was well below its maximum certified capacity.²⁵¹⁷ A ferry that checked out on paper and was not overloaded still burned with more than a hundred people on board, and the number of the dead is still climbing.²⁷⁴ How that is possible is now the central question, and none of the official statements so far answers it.⁹²⁹

The cause has not been determined.⁹²⁹ The initial account described an “explosion-triggered fire,” but no explosion has been confirmed in the reporting that followed.¹¹⁷ What authorities have instead established is liability and investigation.¹⁹²¹ The Philippine Coast Guard said the captain of the June Aster bears liability for the fire in the waters of Coron, and that the operating company, Atienza Interisland Ferries, could also face liability.¹⁹²¹ The Maritime Industry Authority has opened a safety investigation and deployed emergency response teams, and the Coast Guard is examining whether the shipping company is responsible.²⁹¹⁶

The disaster struck on a route to a town popular with tourists, so alongside Filipino passengers and crew, those missing include people travelling for leisure.³⁰²⁷ That is why the dock at Coron has filled with two kinds of grief at once: local families searching for daughters and sons, and visitors who never meant to stay longer than a holiday.³¹⁶ The bodies brought to port on Friday were the first visible proof that the long smoke seen from shore had been hiding the dead.³¹³⁵