Rescuers search for five missing after a landslide at Indonesia’s largest landfill kills four, with heavy rain and waste accumulation blamed for the disaster.
BANTARGEBANG: A landslide at Indonesia’s largest landfill has killed four people with at least five others reported missing. The collapse buried trucks and food stalls at the Bantargebang site just outside Jakarta on Sunday afternoon.
Rescue teams are using heavy equipment and sniffer dogs to search for victims. The national search and rescue agency stated that rescuers are “opening access using heavy equipment like backhoes and deploying tracking dogs to search for any indication of victims.”
The disaster followed hours of heavy rain in the area. The Bantargebang landfill sprawls over more than 110 hectares and holds an estimated 55 million tonnes of trash.
Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq blamed local authorities for allowing waste to accumulate despite a 2008 ban on open landfills. “Bantargebang belongs to the Jakarta administration, so they have to take responsibility,” Hanif told Kompas TV.
“This incident must truly serve as a bitter lesson for us so that Jakarta can promptly make improvements,” he added. The Jakarta environmental agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The landfill serves the greater Jakarta area, home to about 42 million people. The region generates an estimated 14,000 tonnes of waste daily.
President Prabowo Subianto recently warned most Indonesian landfills would exceed capacity by 2028. The government plans to invest USD 3.5 billion to build 34 waste-to-energy plants within two years.
A similar landfill disaster in West Java in 2005 killed 143 people. That tragedy was triggered by a methane gas explosion and heavy rain.
