JP/3/Fire

JP/3/Fire

Fire makes 1,000 homeless and razes shopping center

JAKARTA (JP): More than 1,000 people lost their houses in a fire at the slum area in West Tebet Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday evening over 100 shopowners lost their business sites when a fire gutted the Aldiron Plaza in the Blok M business center.

No casualties were reported at either fire, both located in South Jakarta.

Spokesman of the South Jakarta mayoralty, Mohamad Yanis, said that 230 families had lost their houses following the three-hour fire which razed some one-hectare slum area in the West Tebet subdistrict.

Yanis added that the government and the Indonesian Red Cross had set up a communal kitchen to prepare hot meals for the victims. They had also built two temporary shelters at nearby public buildings.

Yanis, however, said that South Jakarta acting mayor Zaenal Arifin had ordered the local administration to bar residents from rebuilding the area on the grounds that the plots do not belong to them.

"They occupied the area which, according to the master plan, is slated to be a green belt zone," the spokesman said.

The mayoralty had yet to implement the master plan pending instructions from the governor.

The mayoralty had reportedly appropriated 17 hectares of the proposed 22-hectare green belt zone, which include the burned one-hectare slum area.

Toran said that he was told by witnesses that the fire started at 10.30 a.m., following an explosion of a gas stove at a furniture shop.

The South Jakarta police precinct is still running a further investigation, he added.

An official of the South Jakarta fire department said that 20 fire engines arrived on the scene to extinguish the fire and calm down local residents who were hysterically running through the flames to rescue their belongings.

Aldiron

At the famous Blok M business center, hundreds of shopowners of the five-story Aldiron Plaza lost their property when a fire razed the third and fourth floor of the shopping center at around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The police believe that the fire resulted from an electricity short circuit in a neon advertising sign at one of the stores at the third floor.

No casualties were reported, but several stores on the first and second floors were damaged by the firemen in their bid to blockade the fire.

The amount of loss of goods and property has yet to be calculated but it might reach into millions of rupiahs.

The first and second floor are allocated for jewelry and fashion shops, the third floor for food stalls, the fourth for books and stationery items and the fifth for offices.

Most of the shopowners, shopkeepers and office employees of the Aldiron Plaza only heard about the fire when they arrived the morning after for work.

"I had no idea about the fire until I arrived this morning for work," said Melly, a shopowner.

As of Wednesday afternoon, police have kept the plaza cordoned off while a team from the police forensic laboratory conducted their investigation inside.

So far, police have questioned three local security guards believed to have been near the scene when the fire took place. (09/bsr)