Fire rips through seven-storey building in Jakarta, killing 22 people

JAKARTA: A fire swept through a seven-storey office block in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Tuesday, killing 22 people, police said.

The fire has now been extinguished and the recovered bodies have been sent to a hospital for identification, Susatyo Purnomo Condro, the head of Central Jakarta police, told reporters.

The fire erupted on the first floor at around midday and then spread to the upper floors, Condro said.

The building houses the office of Terra Drone Indonesia, a unit of Japanese firm Terra Drone Corporation (278A.T), which provides drones for aerial survey activities with clients in the mining to agriculture sectors.

Some company employees were having lunch in the building at the time while others had left the office, Condro said.

Footage broadcast by Kompas TV showed dozens of firefighters trying to evacuate people, and some were carrying body bags from the building. Some employees were seen escaping from the upper floors using portable ladders.

“A police forensic laboratory team has arrived to investigate the cause of the fire,” Condro said.

“Based on information gathered so far, batteries from a drone caught fire, but the cause of the fire, the point of origin is still being investigated,” he said, adding that police would question the business owner as well as the building owner.

Terra Drone Co apologised in a statement for the stress and inconvenience caused to the local community and customers, adding that it was investigating the impact of the blaze on its business.

The blaze comes nearly two weeks after a huge fire swept through a high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong on November 26.

Authorities said on Tuesday the death toll now stood at 160.