Death toll rises to 7 in Indonesia’s waste mound collapse

Jakarta: The death toll from a massive garbage avalanche at Indonesia’s largest landfill rose to seven, the Jakarta Search and Rescue Office said on Tuesday.

The search and rescue operation ended around midnight on Monday after the last victim was found at the Bantar Gebang waste processing site.

“With all victims found and no additional reports of missing persons, the search and rescue operation has been declared closed,” Desiana Kartika Bahari, head of the Jakarta Search and Rescue Office, said in a written statement.

The garbage mound at the Bantar Gebang site collapsed on Sunday afternoon, burying stall owners, truck drivers along with their vehicles, and waste pickers working in the area.

The victims were found under piles of garbage as rescuers used heavy equipment, including excavators, to clear the site.

The deadly landslide was not the first at the Bantar Gebang site. A similar collapse occurred in 2005 and claimed dozens of lives.

According to the environment ministry, the repeated incidents highlight the serious risks posed by overloading at the more than 110-hectare site, which receives 6,500 to 7,000 tonnes of waste from across Jakarta each day, Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 300 search-and-rescue personnel, using heavy machinery and sniffer dogs, were deployed to the sprawling dump site late Sunday at the Bantargebang Integrated Waste Treatment Facility in Bekasi, a city just outside the capital of Jakarta. Rescuers worked cautiously amid unstable heaps of waste, said Desiana Kartika Bahari, who heads Jakarta’s Search and Rescue Office.

She said the victims included two garbage truck drivers and two food stall sellers who had been working or resting near the landfill, while four people managed to escape the disaster. Rescuers, including police, soldiers and volunteers, were still searching for at least three people reported missing, Bahari said.

IANS