The Pontianak Untan Hospital Building That Caught Fire On The Ground Now It's Starting To Tilt, Ambruk Alert

The new Pontianak Untan Hospital, which has not been completed, began to tilt due to the burning ground floor (ANTARA/Jessica HW).

JAKARTA - The Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) of Pontianak City, explained that the building of the Pontianak University Hospital (Untan) that had not been completed began to tilt. This is all due to a fire on the ground floor from Monday morning to night.

"I have ordered the firefighters who helped put out the fire to retreat about 30 to 40 meters in anticipation of the sudden collapse of the building," said Pontianak City BPBD, Haryadi S Triwibowo when contacted, Monday, August 29 evening.

He explained that apart from the fears that the building would collapse, around 14 firefighters had to be rushed to a nearby hospital due to lack of oxygen as a result of the thickness of the building's fire smoke.

"Because it has been 9 to 10 hours since 09.00 WIB the building caught fire, the fire has not been extinguished yet, because the source of the fire is under the ground floor, making it difficult to extinguish it," he said as quoted by Antara.

He added that not only firefighters who were ordered to step down to be safer, people who watched a lot around the fire site were also ordered to step down.

"Because we don't know that suddenly the building collapsed, so that there were no casualties in this disaster, so all of them had to withdraw further from the building," he said.

He added that it is strongly suspected that the building caught fire because there were residents who burned garbage around the building.

"Moreover, under the ground floor of the building there is still a lot of flammable material from the building's construction, so the fire quickly grew and was difficult to extinguish," he said.

Previously, the Pontianak Fire Station Coordinator, Edi Zulkarnaen, confirmed that several firefighters had shortness of breath and had to be rushed to the hospital for treatment while trying to extinguish the fire at the Untan Pontianak Hospital.

He explained that the smoke caused by the fire was very thick and thick, so some officers experienced shortness of breath due to lack of oxygen.

According to him, there were about a hundred officers and dozens of fire engines were deployed to extinguish the fire in the new building of the Pontianak Untan Hospital, which has not yet been extinguished.