Short circuit may be hotel fire couse

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police investigating the recent hotel fire in Bandung, West Java are exploring the possibility of a short circuit in the hotel's discotheque as the cause of the blaze, which left three people dead.

Greater Bandung Police chief Sr. Supt. Hendra Sukmana said on Wednesday it would take a team of experts from the National Police Forensic Laboratory (Puslabfor) a week to complete their probe into the fire that badly damaged the Perdana Wisata Hotel on Monday.

"There are strong suspicions that the fire was caused by a short circuit in the lighting system in the discotheque. We should get a final report from the team of forensic experts by the end of the week," Hendra said as quoted by Antara.

A police line was seen encircling the six-story hotel on Wednesday.

The fire killed hotel guests Miguel Mancilla, a Spanish policeman who was on leave after serving with the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), and locals Leni Herlina Atmaja and Uun alias Yuki.

Hendra said that while the bodies of the two women had been claimed by their families, the body of the Spanish policeman remained in the morgue of the Hasan Sadikin Hospital. Mancilla's wife was expected to arrive soon to take the victim's body home.

A postmortem examination was conducted on Mancilla's body following the granting of permission by the Spanish Embassy in Indonesia. The autopsy revealed that he had died of suffocation due to smoke inhalation.

Firefighters also discovered the women victims already dead, most likely due to suffocation as well as no burns were found on their bodies.

At least five hotel employees were being questioned in connection with the fire, but nobody had been named a suspect.

"Let's wait for our investigation to be completed, but so far there is no indication of arson," Hendra said.

Asked about the absence of 12 hotel guests following the fire, Hendra said the people were Bandung natives who had checked in on the eve of the accident.

"By the time we had finished sifting through the hotel, we had found no more victims. There were three people killed and six victims are now receiving medical treatment at the Advent Hospital," Hendra said.

The three-star hotel caught fire at around 4 a.m. when about 100 guests were still asleep. It took the fire brigade 12 hours to extinguish the fire.

Total losses resulting from the fire are estimated at billions of rupiah.