Explosion at Jakarta flood gate construction area

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 09/10/2011

The Jakarta Police are investigating an explosion at the construction of Jakarta’s East Flood Gate at around 5 p.m. The explosion was heard up to one kilometer away.

“The location of the explosion was beside the Menteng Metropolitan housing complex,” said East Jakarta Police spokesperson Comr. Didik Hariyadi, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Dian Nurdiansyah, one of the construction site workers, said the explosion occurred while he was operating a machine to pressure soil and limestone. The explosion, he said, came from below layers of soil and lime stone.

“I was stunned. Limestone was flying everywhere,” he said, adding that a one kilogram chunk of limestone landed on a house.

Didik said the police anti-bomb squad had arrived at the vicinity to examine the source of the explosion. From the examination, the squad suspected that the limestone, which came from the Cileungsi mining site in Bogor, could have had traces of explosives from previous mining activities.