Police question factory executives on pollution
Police question factory executives on pollution
JAKARTA (JP): The West Jakarta police have interrogated
executives of a briefcase factory following the death of a woman
and the hospitalization of four other people for respiratory
problems.
"So far we have not reached any conclusions," the outgoing
West Jakarta police chief, Lt. Col. Hari Pribadi, told The
Jakarta Post yesterday.
On Wednesday, a 33-year-old housewife died in Kapuk sub-
district in Cengkareng. Four others, including Agus and her
seven-year-old son, fainted when they rushed to help her.
Yesterday three others passed out too, all residents of Gang
Jamblang, a small flood-prone alleyway near the factory of PT
Continental Panji Pratama. The three new patients were admitted
to Atmajaya hospital in Pluit, where the others had been treated
earlier.
All the victims live in plywood shacks along the back wall of
the factory, and are believed to have inhaled lethal fumes
emitted from waste water allegedly disposed of by company
workers.
An on-duty doctor, Djumrad Hadi, said the patients were
suffering from dizziness and nausea.
As of late yesterday the company director, Johan Iskandar, was
still being questioned by police, along with chief technician
Hadi Prabowo.
"We will take responsibility if our company is proven to have
caused the victim's death," Johan said.
The factory building on Jl. Berdikari 39 produces office
briefcases and suitcases of the brand "President" for export.
"According to preliminary investigations, the fumes should
also have affected factory employees on duty at the time if they
had really been lethal," Lt. Col. Hari said.
Health officials on the site had yet to determine whether the
processing of aluminum for the products had anything to do with
this incident.
The shacks, built in 1989, 14 years after the factory was
built, are occupied by around 50 people, mostly construction
workers and their kin from Serang, West Java.
The chief technician, Hadi, was quoted yesterday as saying
that he had told two employees to wash the factory's waste water
tub.
The area's residents told the Post that on the day in question
the water coming out of the back wall of the factory "was boiling
like battery water" and that the fumes were "indescribable."
Reports said the police have cordoned off the site.
Iman, the neighborhood community head, said complaints about
the fumes cause dizziness and skin irritations, had been made to
the management. The last complaint was in February.
"The management always says that pollution only occurs once in
a while but we feel it twice a day almost daily," he said.
Officials from the city's environmental bureau, and others
from the health agency visited the site and took water samples.
The head of the bureau, Aboejoewono Aboeprajitno, said a lack
of ventilation around the factory's waste treatment plant may
have caused the incident.
He said that according to a 1982 law the owner faces a year in
prison -- or a Rp 1 million fine -- if proven guilty of causing
the accident.
The chairman of the council's commission for development
affairs, Bandjar Marpaung, said the company's operational permit
should be revoked.
"Subdistrict heads should also step up the supervision of
factories. They shouldn't be allowed to look the other way just
because the owners pay them off with bribes." Bandjar said.
(team)