Fire guts train in C. Java

Fire guts train in C. Java

BLORA, Central Java: A Gumarang executive train plying the Jakarta-Surabaya route caught on fire in Wedu village, 10 kilometers west of the Central Java town of Blora, on Saturday. No casualties were reported.

The two-hour long fire began at 4:20 a.m. from the train's cafeteria carriage and spread to another carriage. Crew members were powerless to put out the blaze which razed both carriages as fire-fighting equipment failed to work properly.

The other five carriages were saved from the fire after they were disconnected from the blazing ones and driven away to safety by another locomotive from the nearby Wedu railway station.

Hundreds of passengers, including a journalist with The Jakarta Post, were forced to jump out of the ill-fated train and were later transported to Surabaya by an Argo Bromo executive train.

A train technician traveling from Jakarta to Surabaya told the Post that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit in the cafeteria carriage.

Many passengers blasted the poor effort by the train's crew to put out the blaze following the malfunction of the fire extinguishers.

"The extinguishers should have been regularly checked, so they could have worked properly," said Seno, a ship technician who was among the passengers.

A spokesman of state railway firm PT Kereta Api Indonesia based in Semarang Subadi was quoted by Antara as saying the fire only briefly disturbed railway traffic on the northern coastal railroad in Central Java, when the remaining coaches were removed from the scene to a railway station in the town of Cepu. --JP