JAKARTA: Rescue operations are ongoing for victims of a massive fire at a Jakarta shopping mall, as the death toll rises to six, according to local media on Friday (Jan 17).
The fire broke out at one of the city’s oldest malls, Glodok Plaza in Taman Sari, West Jakarta, at about 9.22pm on Wednesday.
“Six bodies have been brought to the Police Hospital (in East Jakarta) to be identified,” head of Jakarta Regional Disaster Management Agency Isnawa Adji said on Friday, as quoted by local media platform Kompas.
Based on data from the disaster management agency on Friday, 14 people are still missing, although it is unknown whether the six found dead were part of the 14, the fire and rescue agency said.
Earlier, eight people, seven women and one man, were reported missing by their family members.
The fire was only extinguished on Thursday morning but cooling efforts were still ongoing as of Friday, according to local news platform Detik.
On Wednesday night when the fire took place, the fire agency managed to rescue nine individuals using hydraulic ladders.
“Nine survived the fire, thank god they are all in good condition although they were in shock and had difficulty breathing after being rescued,” a senior official from West Jakarta’s fire department, Syariduddin, told the media on Thursday, as quoted by the Jakarta Post.
The city’s fire and rescue agency deployed more than 47 fire trucks and 200 personnel to the site, according to the Jakarta Post.
Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency chief Satriadi Gunawan said that the fire suppression efforts took a while due to the large affected area and burnt electronic products.
Glodok Plaza is known to be Jakarta’s top hub for selling electronics.
“The burnt area was huge, three floors were engulfed in flames, level seven, eight and nine … then, most of the stores in the mall sell electronic products which were burnt,” Satriati explained on Thursday, as quoted by Detik.
Satriadi from the fire agency told the media that the fire started in a nightclub on the seventh floor of Glodok Plaza, before spreading rapidly through the upper floors, trapping those in the nightclub.
Investigations are still ongoing.
Viral videos have surfaced on TikTok showing a number of people waving for help using phone flashlights.
Satriadi earlier said that four bodies were initially found on the eighth floor of the shopping mall, highlighting the difficulty in identifying the victims due to severe burns.
