Starting With A Loud Explosion, The Oil Warehouse In Jambi Caught Fire

Location of the burning oil warehouse on the western ring road of Jambi City. ANTARA/Nanang Mairiadi.

JAMBI - The oil warehouse on the West Ring Road, Kenali Besar Village, Alambarajo District, Jambi City, caught fire.

As a result of this fire, the East Sumatran highway (Jalintim) was jammed for several hours.

Monitoring at the scene, eyewitnesses from local residents said the oil warehouse caught fire at around 09.15 WIB. At first there was an initial explosion that was quite loud and immediately emitted smoke and fire.

Maimunah, 44, a resident of Simpang Rimbo, the west ring road of Jambi City, which is 50 meters from the incident site, said she was surprised to hear a very loud explosion sound and then left the house to see the conditions outside.

"After hearing the sound of explosions five times, then I went out of the house and saw a moon of high smoke and fire that burned the location of the warehouse," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, August 15.

The fire then burned the warehouse and spread out of the warehouse until it burned the 500-meter-long West Sumatran Jalintim highway, causing traffic jams to stop.

After a few minutes later officers and firefighters as well as police and TNI came to the location to extinguish and secure the scene.

There were no fatalities in the incident, but the generator shop which is located right next door also caught fire slightly and the amount of material damage is not yet known.

Meanwhile, Jambi Police Chief Kombes Eko Wahyudi confirmed that this place was an oil warehouse that had been actively operating for a year and when the owner with the initial E was being chased by the police to be held accountable.

Currently, officers from the Jambi Police and the Regional Police are currently investigating the crime scene.

At the scene of the incident, four tank cars, 70 drum tanks, 13 generator sets, 56 round drums were all burnt out.

"It is suspected that the fire was caused by a short circuit in the generator engine which was running," said Kombes Eko Wahyudi.