Fires leave nearly 6,000 homeless in two months

JAKARTA (JP): Fires in January and February left 5,973 city people homeless. Four thousand of those lost homes in two fires in the Kelapa Gading district, North Jakarta.

The fire department recorded 5,701 homes lost in 35 fires up to Feb. 20, while in January, 42 fires destroyed 272 people's homes.

On Saturday victims of the Feb. 12 fire in the Pegangsaan Dua subdistrict, Kelapa Gading, were still living in tents, on land flooded by rains. Mineral water and food were being distributed. The district office has also distributed T-shirts, sarongs, praying attire for women and school uniforms.

Local authority officials said the residents, many of whom are scrap iron collectors, were not allowed to rebuild their 450 homes as the land belonged to the city.

In other fires this month, parts of two factories and 13 warehouses went up in smoke.

Eight of the warehouses, along with 10 houses, were gutted on Feb. 12 in Cilincing, North Jakarta, the same day as one of the Kelapa Gading fires.

Most of the fires were started by short circuits or stove explosions, the records showed.

Four fires this month and nine in January are still under investigation, including the Jan. 27 to Jan. 28 fires which destroyed 97 kiosks in the King Plaza and 230 kiosks in the Harco Plaza, both in the Pasar Baru shopping center.

The records listed one fire was deliberately lit in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, when a man gutted his uncle's house with five liters of gasoline.

Six people died in fires in January. Two died in Sawah Besar, Central Jakarta, Jan. 13 in a fire which destroyed 37 homes, while four others were victims of the Jan. 8 fire which hit a four story building in the Tamansari district, West Jakarta. (anr)