22 dead as fire sweeps through Jakarta building

KABUL (Pajhwok): At least 22 people have been killed when a fire tore through a seven-storey office building in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, a media report said on Wednesday.

According to Reuters, the fire erupted around midday on Tuesday and was later extinguished. The recovered bodies have been transported to a hospital for identification, Susatyo Purnomo Condro, head of the Central Jakarta police, told reporters.

He said the blaze was believed to have originated on the building’s first floor in the Kemayoran neighbourhood before spreading rapidly to the upper levels.

Hundreds of emergency personnel and 29 fire trucks were deployed to bring the fire under control. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

Condro added that many workers — employed at a drone company that used the building as a sales and storage office — had left for lunch when a battery began sparking in a storage and testing area, according to witness accounts.

Authorities said the bodies of at least 22 victims — seven men and 15 women, including a pregnant woman — were recovered.

The tragedy comes just two weeks after a massive fire in a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong claimed 160 lives.

kk/sa