BI employees shocked by fire

JAKARTA (JP): The fire that gutted the top floors of one of Bank Indonesia's new 25-story twin towers in Central Jakarta killing 15 people yesterday was described by most employees there as a horrible inferno.

Hundreds of employees were working in the building when the fire started and many said it would not be easy to extinguish the nightmare from their memories.

Farida, 30, who is seven months pregnant, was in a toilet in her office on the 18th floor when the fire took place.

"A thick, black smoke suddenly came out from the ventilation system. When I came out of the bathroom, the office was already empty," she said after being admitted for medical treatment at a nearby clinic.

Through the window, she saw a crowd of people below waving at her and shouting "fire, fire".

Farida, who had just moved to the new building three months ago, suddenly realized she was trapped in a high-rise that was on fire.

She rushed to the emergency stairs after finding the elevator not functioning.

She could only reach the 11th floor before fatigue overcame her.

"I can only remember a fireman picking me up and carrying me to the lobby where my friends were waiting," Farida recalled.

On the higher floors, hundreds of frightened employees, including cleaning service personnel and construction workers, rushed to the stairs creating panic and confusion.

"The only thing that I could remember was my two children at home. The thought of getting home to them stirred me to immediately rush downstairs," said Betty J. Panirusa, whose office was on the 20th floor.

She said the fire was the worst she had ever witnessed.

She saw hundreds of her colleagues running from the blaze to safety while anxious friends below could only watch.

Betty said she met Erika, the only female victim killed in the fire, in the last minutes before the secretary died in an elevator with two other victims on the 25th floor.

Erika, who worked on the 22nd floor, reportedly safely reached the 20th floor while attempting to escape. But she went back upstairs, telling Betty that she wanted to retrieve her boss' bag.

"That's the last time I saw mbak (sister) Erika," Betty said. "Before she went back upstairs, she even told us to hurry and save ourselves," she recalled.

Isa, a cleaning service employee, said that she realized there was a fire only after seeing thick smoke coming out from an air ventilator on the 20th floor.

"I just stayed calm in the beginning because I thought it was just a technical problem," she said. "I only tried to escape after my friends told me that the building was on fire."

The fire also amazed Hasanuddin, a fireman at the scene.

"The smoke was too thick up there. It was only from the smell that I realized that I was stepping on a dead body," he recalled.

The fire, which was quickly reported on by several television stations while in progress, also attracted relatives of the bank's employees and workers to the scene.

Fila, 20, of the Reni Jaya housing complex in Pamulang, South Jakarta, said that she looked for her husband, Maman Sulaiman, who she said was a construction worker at the building.

Accompanied by her two-year-old daughter, Fila was unable to find out the fate of her husband as evening fell due to a lack of information available. (04)