June Aster death toll reaches 76 off Coron as 13 names stay missing

The death toll on the MV June Aster rose to 76 on 12 September after the Philippine Coast Guard recovered 41 more bodies from the burned ferry off Coron, Palawan. Thirteen people remain unaccounted for. Forty-three people survived, among them 30 passengers and 13 crew. Two names on the manifest had not boarded. Commodore Noemi Cayabyab, the Coast Guard spokeswoman, said the count may still move because flooded lower decks have not been fully searched.

The June Aster left Manila for Coron with 132 people, including 17 crew, on a crossing that usually takes about 20 hours. At about 18:45 on Wednesday, 10 September, near the village of Marcilla on Coron Island, a fire started. Survivors described black smoke and screams. Some jumped without life jackets. The Maritime Industry Authority, citing survivor accounts, said two explosions were heard before the flames moved through the passenger spaces. Cayabyab said wind may have accelerated the spread. The hull later drifted about 7.5 kilometres, nearly eight nautical miles from the first distress point, and grounded.

Rescuers found five bodies in the first hours, then 30 more, then 41 on Saturday. Many remains are charred. Some were clustered in compartments. Others were scattered. Forensic specialist Richard Allan Mangalip of the Philippine National Police told reporters that identification could take weeks or months because of the number of DNA comparisons required. One-metre graves have been dug in Coron for temporary burial until the laboratory work is done. Two of the rescued passengers were Chilean.

Anelyn Magbanua, 37, waited at the port for news of her husband, who was returning from a visit to their children in Manila. Workers in protective suits carried black bags from a Coast Guard boat into tents set up for the forensic team.

The cause is not known. Investigators have not reached the engine room or all of the flooded lower deck. Those spaces are where a mechanical origin would leave traces. Philippine ferry disasters have a long list. This one is already among the deadliest of recent years because the fire took hold close to shore and still killed more than half of the people on the book.

Thirteen missing names sit beside 76 recovered bodies and 43 living. Until the lower decks are pumped and searched, the Coast Guard will not close the file. For families in Coron and Manila, the next official act is a DNA match, not a finding on why the ship burned.

Coron is a tourist island. The Manila ferry is how many residents and workers move, not only how visitors arrive. A fire 2.2 kilometres off the destination, after 20 hours at sea, left almost no time for an orderly abandon-ship. People who jumped without jackets and people who stayed inside the smoke are both in the 76.

Identification will be slow because fire and water both destroy the usual markers. DNA is the method Mangalip named. Temporary graves are the method the town has. Thirteen missing names mean the Coast Guard still has compartments to open. The engine room is one of them. Until that room is entered, the two explosions reported by survivors remain a statement, not a finding.

The first 30 bodies recovered on Friday were already in tents at the Coron port when the Saturday lift of 41 arrived. That sequence is why the official toll jumped in a single Coast Guard note rather than in a slow daily drip. Families who had been told to wait now have a larger set of remains and no faster names. The laboratory queue, not the search boats, is the constraint that will set the next date on this file.