Fire concern changes Tanah Abang market design
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Advice from the City Fire Department on the difficulty to extinguish fires in public places has prompted the city market operator PD Pasar Jaya to change the design of Tanah Abang textile market in Central Jakarta.
With the new design, the market will have 16 floors above ground and three below. It is different from the original design in which the market was to have seven floors above ground and seven underground.
"The fire department's concern was our main consideration to revise the Tanah Abang market reconstruction design," PD Pasar Jaya president director Prabowo Soenirman told The Jakarta Post recently.
The revised design was approved by related agencies in the city administration recently and the 36-month reconstruction project will start in mid-December at the former location of the old market.
The city's top fireman, Johnny Pangaribuan, had warned the administration that having seven underground levels could create more problems for firefighters in the event of another blaze.
Firemen needed five days to completely extinguish a massive fire at the four-story tall Tanah Abang market, which used to be the largest textile market in Southeast Asia, on Feb. 19. A total of 2,420 of the market's 7,594 shops were incinerated.
A report on the fire by Tempo weekly last March titled Ada Tomy di 'Tenabang?', which insinuates that businessman Tomy Winata was responsible for the fire, has resulted in the ongoing legal battle between the weekly and the businessman.
Johnny said that smoke would be the main problem in a fire as each firefighter only had between 20 and 30 minutes before the oxygen in his tank ran out.
According to Prabowo, the total investment for the new market would be approximately Rp 600 billion (US$70.59 million) apparently provided by the market operator's business partners, who are set to be announced publicly early next month.
He guaranteed that he would offer special kiosk leases for some 2,200 traders from the old market who lost their shops. Each kiosk, measuring four square meters, would be leased for Rp 20 million compared to the regular price of some Rp 100 million.