Fire at Indonesia prison kills more than 40 people
At least 41 prisoners have been killed and at least eight injured after a fire tore through an overcrowded prison block on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
The blaze started in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time in Block C of Tangerang Prison, in Banten province, according to Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus.
Yusri said firefighters stopped the fire from spreading to other blocks in prison and battled the flames for two hours before extinguished it.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing, but Yusri said they initially suspect an electrical short circuit is to blame.
Rika Aprianti, the spokeswoman of the prison department of the law and human rights ministry, said authorities were still evacuating the facility and "the cause is under investigation."
The block housed inmates being held for drug-related offences and had a capacity for 122 people, she said. She did not say how many people were present when the fire broke out but confirmed the jail was overcrowded.
According to government data, the prison in Tangerang, an industrial and manufacturing hub near Jakarta, housed more than 2,000 inmates, far more than its 600 people capacity, as of September.
Kompas TV showed footage of firefighters trying to put out huge flames from the top of a building. The broadcaster reported 41 people had died and eight had been seriously injured.
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