Residents were digging through the charred rubble of their homes on Saturday March 4 after the deadly fire at a fuel depot in Jakarta. At least seventeen people, including two children, died and fifty were injured in the disaster which led the Indonesian government to call for an investigation.

“It started with a really strong smell. So strong that you could hardly breathe,” Swastono Aji, a witness, told Agence France-Presse. “We were leaving when we suddenly heard a very loud explosion. »

The fire broke out on Friday evening at the Plumpang depot, owned by the national oil company Pertamina, in the north of the capital, Jakarta, according to the city’s firefighters, who transmitted the human toll. Many of the injured suffered severe burns and hundreds of other people living near the depot had to be evacuated, they added.

Members of the government, including the minister responsible for state-owned enterprises, Erick Thohir, have called for an investigation to determine the cause of the accident as well as an audit of the country’s energy infrastructure after several fires in recent years. “I have ordered Pertamina to investigate this matter immediately and we are now focusing on helping the people. There must be operational control in the future,” the minister wrote Friday on Instagram.

Two fires in 2009 and 2014

“After we had several fires (…) it is clear that we must control all the oil installations and the infrastructures, in particular the tanks and the refineries”, abounded on Saturday, on the Metro TV channel, the president of the commission Energy of Parliament, Sugeng Suparwoto.

In 2021, a huge fire took place at the Balongan refinery, also owned by Pertamina, in the west of the island of Java, one of the largest in the country. Fires had already broken out at the Plumpang depot in 2009 and then in 2014 – forty houses were affected that year – without causing any casualties.

Saturday morning, the houses near the place of the fire were gutted and blackened. Further on, whole rows of charred cars. A child stood in the middle of the scene as paramedics evacuated a body in a body bag. The night before, television footage showed people running screaming through narrow streets and, behind them, gigantic flames rising into the sky.

The army and Pertamina said they were investigating the cause of the tragedy, which is not yet known. Jakarta Fire Chief Satriadi Gunawan, however, said he had received preliminary information that a pipe at the facility had burst.

Fuel supplies have not been interrupted, with other terminals taking over, Pertamina chief executive Nicke Widyawati said.

Jakarta acting governor Heru Budi Hartono said the government would pay for the treatment of the injured, many of whom were still in hospital on Saturday. The North Jakarta Red Cross reported that 342 people had been evacuated and it had pitched four tents to accommodate the displaced.