Futile effort to extinguish fire

JP/A. Nara Krisna

Firefighters (photo above) fruitlessly direct a hose against the Ministry of Industry and Trade building on Jl. Ridwan Rais, Central Jakarta.

Using 15 fire appliances, firefighters struggled on Saturday morning to extinguish the flames, which had started to envelop the building at about 11:00 a.m.

Witnesses said fires started to burn on the ninth floor and continued to spread to the tenth floor of the building.

The cause of the fire was still unknown.

No casualties were reported. However, it was believed that important export and import documents, especially on textile and mining products, were reduced to ashes.

The ninth floor is the office of the directorate of mining and industrial product exports.

"This is a tragedy that could befall anyone. The ninth floor kept export data on textile and textile products. But I cannot say this was sabotage," said Minister of Industry and Trade Rini MS Soewandi, who arrived at the scene one hour after the fire had started.

Nevertheless, she said she had asked the police to investigate the cause of the fire. --JP