Fire Kills 41 In Indonesia Prison block
Fire killed 41 inmates in an overcrowded prison block in Indonesia’s Banten province, injuring scores more in a blaze, and may have been caused by an electrical fault.
Indonesian law and human rights minister, Yasonna Laoly, after visiting the scene said that, the fire is the country’s most deadly since 47 perished in a firework factory disaster in 2017, broke out at 1.45 a.m. local time in a Tangerang Prison block.
“We’re working together with relevant authorities to look into the causes of the fire and of course formulating prevention strategies so that severe catastrophes like this won’t happen again.”
According to him, two of the dead were foreign nationals, one each from South Africa and Portugal, and confirmed the prison was operating in overcapacity when the fire broke out.
“Cells were locked at the time but with the fire raging uncontrollably, some rooms couldn’t be opened.”
Rika Aprianti, a spokeswoman for the ministry’s prison department, said 122 were being detained on drug-related offences in a block built to hold 38.
41 fatalities were inmates, authorities were still evacuating the facility as of 9.00 a.m.
Prisons in Indonesia are notoriously overcrowded, with experts saying the phenomenon is partly due to the emphasis on incarceration rather than rehabilitation of those convicted of drug-related offences under the country’s strict narcotics laws.
Leopold Sudaryono, a criminologist and PhD candidate at the Australian National University, said that overcrowding also complicated emergency evacuation efforts.
“At the Tangerang prison there are only five guards working one shift to guard a prison with 2,079 people. So fire detection efforts and evacuations are difficult.”
The head of the prison was not immediately available for comment on the ratio of inmates to guards, nor the capacity of the facility. Prison department spokeswoman Rika said, 13 guards had been on duty at the facility at the time of the blaze.
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Kamila/Reuters
