Warehouse engulfed by flames

JAKARTA (JP): A major fire engulfed a two-story warehouse of a cosmetic and medical equipment distributor at the Pulogadung industrial complex in East Jakarta on Saturday afternoon.

No fatalities were reported, but the warehouse owner, PT Mensa Bina Sukses, suffered an estimated hundreds of millions of rupiah in material losses.

An eyewitness said he heard an explosion somewhere in the warehouse, but he was not sure whether the explosion came first or the fire.

"I'm not sure which happened first, the explosion or the fire," one of the company's salespeople, Rizal, said.

The cause of the fire, believed to have started at 1:15 p.m. in one of the rooms of the building, is still under police investigation.

The fire also burned a sedan belonging to Mensa Bina Sukses inside the warehouse.

The eyewitness said he saw none of the warehouse's 240 employees at the time, but there were some people, believed to be the firm's salespeople, who later helped evacuate some merchandise and office equipment.

"We at least were able to save some equipment and boxes of cosmetics," he said.

The East Jakarta Fire Department, which received information 10 minutes after the fire started, dispatched 11 fire engines to the scene with about 65 crew.

Although the scene and water sources were easy to reach, it took the fire fighters three hours to put out the blaze due to the huge number of flammable items inside the store and the strong wind. (04/bay)