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Fire in Jakarta causes melting of railway track

23 May 2007, JAKARTA - A fire that razed through many houses on both side of a railroad track in Duri Angke, West Jakarta has even caused the railway track to melt. The fire started around 17:40 local time on Tuesday. "I received a report from the Kebayoran Railway Station that several points of the rail track in the area melted," a spokesman for the state railway company PT KAI, Ahmad Sujadi.

Sujadi said that there was also damaged the aerial power line and the signaling system between the stations of Tanah Abang and Kota were also seriously damaged. "In the disaster, two electric trains were trapped, but had already been pulled to Senen railway station via Kampung Bandan," he said. Two other trains from Rangkasbitung were also brought to Senen station via Jatinegara and then to Tanah Abang, "Thousands of passengers were stranded because of the fire," he said.

Sujadi did not say whether the damaged railway line would be repaired soon. He also didn't give an estimation on material losses caused by the fire because it was still too early. He called on authorities to bring the illegal occupation of the land on both sides of the track to order since the fire raged there and may have started there as well. "The illegal structures are posing a serious threat to the safety of everybody, because the train is only 20 cm apart from the makeshift houses. We had tried several times to deal with this situation, but lack of coordination between the relevant authorities had made it difficult to bring permanent changes" he added.