A speedboat carrying 36 tourists and crew erupted into a fiery explosion off the coast of Thailand.

At least six people have been in injured – with the captain among them – in the fire near Maiton Island, off Phuket Island, this morning.

The vessel, Tana Marine 555, was just 50 meters offshore when the blast ripped through it, turning it into a fireball.

Footage from the scene shows the flames raging, sending thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.

The force sent debris flying as flames rapidly consumed the boat, leaving people on board with mere seconds to react.

The tourists, mainly from Russia and Kazakhstan, were jumped into the water, swimming for their lives. They were later rescued by a passing boat.

Nachapong Pranit, director of the Phuket Marine Office, said a rescue team was deployed after receiving a report at 9:20 am.

The Phuket Information Centre said: ‘The fire spread rapidly. There were 36 crew members and tourists on board.

‘Everyone was able to get off the boat in time. However, there were minor injuries from the incident.’

A report said three tourists were injured along with the captain, a guide and the boat’s mechanic.

Later reports said that two were injured with burns and were taken to a waiting ambulance and transferred to hospital.

One report said the vessel had made a swimming stop when the engine exploded and ignited – but for this the casualties would have been far higher. Authorities are yet to comment on what happened.

‘The fire was caused by an engine malfunction,’ it said.

‘While rescue services were getting to the site, the boat washed up on the shore, where it completely burned out.’

This is the latest disaster involving a vessel in the last week after a tourist submarine with 45 Russian citizens on board sank off the coast of Egypt.

(Reuters) – The Trump administration has fired staff at U.S. health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 health jobs, according to sources familiar with the situation and a health official.

The cuts are part of a broad plan by President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk to shrink staffing levels in federal departments and agencies.

Brian King, head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, was fired, according to an email sent by King to FDA staff seen by Reuters.

Peter Stein, the director of the Office of New Drugs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research division, resigned on Tuesday, according to one source familiar with the matter.

King and Stein’s exits adds to top leadership departures across the FDA’s divisions including drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices and tobacco products. Staff have also been leaving and some employees reviewing products say they are struggling to meet their deadlines.

An FDA employee said staff had to present their badges at the building entrance and those who had been fired were given a ticket and told to return home, according to one source.

Other fired staff received emails Tuesday morning that said their terminations did not reflect on their service, performance or conduct, and that they would be placed on administrative leave immediately, according to an email seen by Reuters.

At the CDC, fired staff worked at the National Center for Environmental Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, according to another source.

The cuts at NCIRD included at least one person working on the federal response to measles outbreaks, the source said.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available for comment.

A five hour police hunt for a corpse ended in shock when the body turned out to be a lifelike sex doll.

The ‘dead body in a blue plastic bag’ was first spotted on Saturday evening by a dog walker at a demolition site in Rostock, northern Germany.

It was only once homicide investigators, police drones and fire engines were at the scene for five hours did they discover the human remains were actually something entirely different.

The alleged corpse was in fact a lifelike female sex doll.

The love buddy had even been set on fire in several places and stuffed into a blue IKEA bag.

Bemused police officers then carted off the synthetic doll and a funeral director, hired to transport the body to a morgue, was told to go home.

The cordon and crime scene were hastily deconstructed, what has already been labelled ‘one of the most bizarre police operations in criminal history’.

This is not the first time a human sex toy has been mistaken for a dead body.

Police officers in the US state of Georgia responded to a call of a female body found along a hiking path in the Hitchiti National Forest.

After racing to the trail they unearthed a discarded human-sized sex doll.

The blonde-haired doll was dressed in a short blue shorts and a pink tube top and appeared remarkably lifelike when partly submerged in the woodland.

Cops quickly dubbed the doll Selena and collected her as evidence.

They department then joned on Facebook that Selena was ‘a little under the weather’ but ‘has been having a nice day and is expected to make a full recovery.’ 

The Police assured Selena’s owner that their DNA would not be collected, but stressed the importance of not littering.