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Jakarta Post

Police question expert witnesses in Mandom factory blaze

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The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Mon, November 30, 2015

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Police question expert witnesses in Mandom factory blaze Illustration. (AP/Shakil Adil) (AP/Shakil Adil)

Illustration. (AP/Shakil Adil)

Two expert witnesses have been examined by the Jakarta Police in relation to a blaze at a PT Mandom Indonesia cosmetics factory that claimed 28 lives.

According to Anondho Wijanarko, professor of engineering at the University of Indonesia and a safety expert, a hydrocarbon detection panel inside the factory'€™s filling machine installation room showed a high level of hydrocarbon but did not trigger an alarm, which suggested inadequate standard operating procedures (SOP) as the alarm could be turned on and off manually.

He added that the high level of hydrocarbon also led to questions about the proper functioning of a suction blower in the filling machine room.

Another expert witness, Kunihiko Koike from Osaka University, Japan, stated that an abnormal leakage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) could have occurred when routine or daily maintenance of the filling machine was neglected or because of a valve that did not work properly, as well as several other reasons.

Koike concluded that even if there was a leakage, it would not have triggered a blaze if safety procedures had been enforced properly, including a good ventilation system with the help of a suction blower and a proper alarm system.

The Jakarta Police have named two suspects from PT Iwatani Industrial Gas Indonesia (IIGI) in the fatal blaze at the factory in Bekasi, West Java. IIGI is the contractor assigned to fix the Mandom factory'€™s gas facilities.

The police earlier said that Mandom had assigned IIGI to install eight new flexible tubes in the aerosol production area. The publicly listed company, which moved its cosmetics production to the Bekasi factory in April, said that it could no longer use existing flexible tubes from its previous factory in Sunter, North Jakarta, because they had passed their expiration date. (kes)

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