The Explosion At The Gegana Storage Warehouse, Mako Brimob, East Java Police, Allegedly Due To Hot Temperatures

East Java Police Chief Inspector General Imam Sugianto/ANTARA

East Java Police Chief Inspector General Imam Sugianto said the explosives that exploded at the Subden Jibom Detachment Gegana Satbrimob, Gresik Street, Surabaya City were categorized as low explosive.

"Why is it said that it is low explosive? Because many eyewitnesses saw that there was a white smoke effect, it was one of the low explosive signs," said the East Java Police Chief to reporters in Surabaya, quoted by ANTARA, Monday, March 4.

The Regional Police Chief said the explosives in the storage warehouse located in the Gegana Satbrimob Detachment, one of which was a bondet or a fish bomb.

The goods were actually about to be detonated or positioned by officers using black powder which was also found in the storage warehouse.

"The drills were approximately one kilogram, the material was used by the Jibom Team when they found or confiscated explosives from the findings or those submitted by the community and then destroyed using black powder and other explosives, such as charcoal powder and potassium," he said.

The Kapolda said the initial cause of the explosion was suspected to be due to weather factors affecting the room temperature in the storage warehouse.

Moreover, the building used to store explosives has also been consumed by age.

"This storage warehouse turns out to be a house built from 1951, the building is quite old," he said.

In the same place, the Head of the Forensic Laboratory (Labfor) of the East Java Regional Police, Kombes Sodiq Pratomo, explained that the low explosive category explosives did have an explosive vulnerability.

"Very sensitive or risky to movement, heat, pressure. If it's high, it's not sensitive, that's from our analysis," he said.

He said the explosion did not only occur when the weather was hot, but the rainy conditions could trigger the incident, because it affected the humidity conditions of the room.

However, his party still needs time to get certainty about the cause of the explosion that occurred this morning.

"So, the temporary conclusion is because the conditions are humid, continue to be exposed to the sun, so an explosion arises," he said.

Officers are still carrying out the process of cleaning or sterilizing the area from the remains of the explosion, be it building debris or other chemicals in the storage warehouse.