At least 22 people died in a fire at an office building in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Tuesday. Police said that a pregnant woman was also among the dead.
A seven-storey office building in central Jakarta was engulfed in flames, sending a plume of smoke into the sky and causing panic among nearby residents and employees.
Central Jakarta police chief Susatyo Purnomo Kondro said the fire broke out in the afternoon and was believed to have started on the first floor of the building in the Kemayoran area and later spread to other floors.
According to Kondro, hundreds of personnel and 29 fire engines were deployed to control the fire. The cause of the fire is still being investigated.
Many office workers in the building were out for lunch when batteries in a storage and testing area began sparking, Condro said, citing multiple witnesses. He said the building is used as a sales and storage office for the drone company.
According to Kondro, the fire was extinguished after three hours of hard work. He said at least 22 bodies were recovered from the building.
Kondro said the dead included seven men and 15 women, one of whom was pregnant. He said the bodies were taken to the police hospital in East Jakarta for identification.
“It is suspected that a short circuit or thermal fault in the drone’s battery caused the explosion and fire in the office,” Dmitry, who survived the incident, told a local television channel.
“Some colleagues on the upper floors tried to escape by going to the roof, pleading for help,” he said.
