Hundreds rescued from burning ship off coast of Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico.
(Image credit: Al Bello/Getty Images)

After a fire broke out in its engine room, more than 500 passengers and crew members on a ship off the coast of Puerto Rico had to be rescued Wednesday afternoon. 


The passengers were safely evacuated to San Juan's harbor, where 105 people were treated at the scene, most for shock, dehydration, and heat stroke, and 24 were hospitalized. The Caribbean Fantasy is a combination ferry and cruise ship, and an engineer told The Associated Press he spent two hours with another engineer trying to extinguish the fire. The ship runs several times a week between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and most of the passengers, including a boys' baseball team, a cycling team, and a girls' volleyball team, were Dominican.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.