Fire razes 40 houses in North Jakarta

Fire razes 40 houses in North Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): "Pak, let's go home, pak," two-year-old Nur Sofiah pleads to her father.

"Where to? Our house is gone, dear," he replies.

But the pleas continued. So to silence her Sururi finally took his daughter back to her house. It has been reduced to a plastic tent supported by a few wooden objects. The rest went up in flames in a fire Thursday morning.

Some 40 houses on Jalan Muara Baru Ujung in the Penjaringan district, in the north of the city, were razed leaving 200 people homeless.

The remains of Nur Sofiah's house left no sign of what had previously been there.

"She did not stop crying until we lay down to sleep on this cardboard last night," Sururi said, referring to the boxes he now used as a sleeping mat.

Eight fire brigade units took two hours to extinguish the fire, Sartono, an officer at the North Jakarta fire brigade, told the Post yesterday.

A report filed to the fire department cited a gas stove's explosion as the cause of the fire and estimated damage of some Rp 400 million, Sartono added.

Explosion

However Atika, a resident, said that the blaze was not actually started by a gas stove explosion.

"In the beginning it was a gas leak which caught fire when a nearby stove was lit," she said.

Edi Santoso, Atika's nephew, suffered severe burns and is now being treated at a nearby public health center, she said.

The Indonesian Red Cross has set up an emergency rescue tent near the fire site though most people seem to prefer to stay with their neighbors or have evacuated to relatives elsewhere. A community kitchen was also set up by the fire victims.

Others started to rebuild their houses by working on the charred frames.

"We don't really have anywhere else to go," Adit, a house owner said.

Residents claimed they have land use rights on the compound of the state-run port agency.

Newspaper reports cited a source at the North Jakarta mayoralty saying the residents had no building permits. (14)