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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.
“We had not ruled out the possibility of more victims,” she
said, “We are still gathering data to confirm how many vehicles
and workers were caught beneath the debris.”
Photos and videos released by the National Search and Rescue
Agency showed excavators digging through the collapsed mound,
where several garbage trucks and small food stalls were buried.
The National Disaster Management Agency's spokesperson, Abdul
Muhari, urged strict safety protocols during the ongoing search,
noting that weather forecasts for the next two days indicate
potential rain across Jakarta and its nearby satellite cities.
He warned that the unstable collapsed material could trigger
additional ground movement, putting rescue teams at further
risk.
Sunday's deadly collapse renewed scrutiny of Bantargebang, a
critical but overwhelmed landfill that receives most of Greater
Jakarta’s daily household waste. The site has faced repeated
warnings about capacity, prompting national efforts to overhaul
Indonesia’s waste management system.
In January, a similar collapse of garbage and debris buried or
trapped workers in low-slung buildings at a landfill in the
Philippines, killing at least four people, injuring a dozen and
leaving more than 30 others missing.
In 2005, 31 people were killed and dozens went missing after a 7
meters (23 feet) rubbish dump collapsed following heavy rain,
triggering a landslide that buried or damaged 60 houses in two
West Java villages near the Indonesian city of Bandung.
Late last year, the government announced a two-year deadline to
clear Bantargebang through an accelerated waste-to-energy
project aimed at reducing chronic over reliance on open dumping.
The initiative, backed by a new presidential regulation intended
to streamline licensing and encourage investment, calls for
converting refuse into electrical or thermal energy.
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