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JAKARTA (AFP) - A suspected car bomb tore through the underground parking lot of the Jakarta Stock Exchange building on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, and injuring 27. The first sheet-covered bodies of the dead, with men's shoes protruding from underneath, were removed from the smoke-filled basement parking lot one-by-one by rescue workers, some four hours after the blast, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Car owners with handkerchiefs covering their mouths and noses then began to drive out under the supervision of marines, the reporter said. Two charred bodies were taken out a few minutes afterwards. A Red Cross official with the search and rescue team said the dead were taken to two hospitals - Pertamina and the state Ciptomangunkusumo hospital. At Ciptomangunkusumo morgue, five bodies were brought in from the blast, an employee there said. At Pertamina, a total of 32 people were admitted, a doctor named Marsito at the emergency ward told AFP. Four of them were dead on arrival and a fifth, a badly burned man still wearing the tatters of a security guard uniform, died a few minutes after arrival at the emergency ward, Marsito said. Of the injured, 17 were still under treatment at Pertamina while 10 others had been allowed to go home, he added. The identities of the dead were unknown, but an exchange spokesman said all dealers and traders were accounted for. By 10:00 pm (1500 GMT) the underground parking lot was still packed with cars, mostly damaged or covered in soot and debris. But search and rescue efforts had been halted and police only remained outside the building. It was unclear how many people, if any, were still trapped in cars or elsewhere in the basement. The explosion at around 3:17 pm (0817 GMT) caused panic in the 36-storey tower of the exchange building, and forced the closure of trading at the bourse, where share prices were tumbling over political uncertainties ahead of the second session of the corruption trial of former president Suharto on Thursday. National police chief General Rusidharjo declined to speculate whether the blast was related to the trial. But the belief was widespread here that the two were connected. On the eve of the Suharto trial, which opened in south Jakarta on August 31, a strong explosion damaged a minibus parked around 500 meters from the venue of the trial, but there were no casualties. And after a son of Suharto had been questioned on his father's case in July, a bomb blew up at the attorney general's office. "In the climate of uncertainty and tension here, everyone is sure there is a connection with the Suharto trial," a western diplomat said.
The floor was awash with water from automatic fire sprinklers. Jakarta police spokesman Superintendent Nur Usman said that judging from the power of the blast, explosives must had been used, and that they had been placed in a car. "This involves explosives, but we do not yet know the type of explosive used," Usman said, adding that no warning was received. General Rusidharjo said the blast originated from a red van parked on P2. Usman estimated the power of the explosion as about half that of the bomb blast that devastated the Philippine embassy residence here in August. The blast at the mission killed two people and injured 20, including the Philippine ambassador. "Trading will be closed on Thursday and Friday and will resume on Monday," Jakarta Stock Exchange head Ahmad Daniri said, adding that the decision had been taken jointly with the capital market watchdog Bapepam. Sudrajat, a deliveryman for a securities firm, said he was on the 20th floor of the building at the time of the explosion. "It sounded like a huge boom! Everybody on that floor ran to escape, but fortunately no one got trampled." |
An AFP journalist allowed onto the hot second floor (P2) parking level late on Wednesday night said the smoke had cleared, and the building's lighting system was back in working order.
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