Gas Odour in Cimuning Detected Long Before the Fire Arrives

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Nothing truly changed on the afternoon of Wednesday (1/4/2026) at SPBE Cimuning, Mustikajaya, Bekasi City, except for the gas odour that slowly emerged and did not quickly dissipate. The aroma arrived faintly, lingering in the air, almost like an ordinary occurrence that did not need to be worried about. Activities continued as usual, with people carrying on as they had on previous days. Ningsih (30), an employee and long-time resident in the area, recalled the initial moments of the leak. “The incident happened around 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m., there was a report from an employee, it was fixed, perhaps they continued working afterwards,” said Ningsih when met at the scene on Thursday (2/4/2026). There was a time lag since the odour was first detected. There were repair efforts that were temporarily carried out, and it was assured that everything had returned to safe. In 18 years of living there, Ningsih had only heard of a similar leak once before, and it ended without major impact. “I heard it happened once, but it was safe. This time, it was just unexpected. The impact was much greater,” she said. As evening approached, employees began to move away from the location one by one. Not because of certainty of danger, but because the worry became increasingly difficult to ignore. “Everyone had left (the employees). Maybe around 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. WIB. The tanker truck was filled at 8:00 p.m. WIB. Then the vapours started coming out, perhaps half an hour later everyone came out, the residents only came out after the gas leak announcement, everyone panicked,” she explained. Time passed as usual, until suddenly it did not. But that night, the fire arrived. The blaze consumed around 2,000 square metres of land at SPBE Cimuning, leaving major damage and panic that spread quickly.