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