At least 30 dead in fire at Indonesia house used as match factory

At least 30 people including children were killed in a fire that swept through a house that doubled as a match factory in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, a disaster official said Friday.

Irwan Syahri of the local disaster mitigation agency in Langkap district said the dead included three children. He added that many of the victims were burned beyond recognition.

TV images showed the burned-out structure, its floor littered with twisted metal, blackened corrugated iron roofing and other debris.

Faisal Riza, whose wife Marlina died in the fire, said the workers at the match business were all women, some of whom brought their children with them.

“I was walking to a mosque for prayers when I heard the factory in an alley just about 200 meters [650 feet] from my house was on fire,” he said at a police hospital in Medan where bodies were taken. “I ran to save her, but it was too late. When I got there, the factory was burned down.”

The house owner, an elderly woman identified only as Ros, told MetroTV that she had rented the property for the last four years to a businessman from the provincial capital, Medan.

Riza said the building’s front door was usually locked and that the fire had started at the back of the property. Bodies were piled up near the front door, he said.

Millions of Indonesians work in unsafe conditions in informal or poorly regulated industries, and accidents and fatalities are common.

Dozens died in the collapse of an unlicensed gold mine in North Sulawesi in February, and at least 47 people including underage workers were killed by a blaze at a fireworks factory in a Jakarta satellite city in October 2017.

North Sumatra police spokesman M.P. Nainggolan said the cause of the match factory fire was still unclear.