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uthorities have pointed their fingers at residents'€™ littering habits over the collapse of a railway separator wall on Monday that killed one pedestrian and injured two others.

Dela Aurelia (17), Yola Agustiani (17) and Rahmawati (29) were walking on the footpath in Jl. South Manggarai, Tebet, South Jakarta, when the wall fell on them. Dela died instantly, while Yola and Rahmawati were admitted to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Salemba, Central Jakarta, and are currently receiving medical treatment for various injuries.

Tebet Police head Comr. Nurdin A. Rachman said Tuesday that he believed the two-meter wall had collapsed under the pressure of a '€œmountain of garbage'€ inside the railway. He said that an investigation had been started and a number of witnesses would be questioned right away.

For years, local residents have used the railway as a place to throw garbage, partly due to the lack of dump sites provided by the local administration. The habit is thought to have caused the wall to tilt toward the road side as it holds back the piles of garbage inside.

Sanitation agency officers have said that railways are, for them, considered as an inaccessible location to collect dumped rubbish because such sites are the property of state-owned train operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI).

As the police continue to investigate the incident, Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama has suggested that residents are to blame, citing their littering habit.

'€œI have repeatedly said that the residents have a bad habit, throwing their waste beside the railway tracks. They should have more awareness,'€ he said at the City Hall, adding that similar things had also happened at other railway locations.

'€œFor example, you can find discarded waste on the railway in Mangga Dua [Central Jakarta]. I have told the district head that we will no longer tolerate such a habit,'€ he continued.

Furthermore, Ahok said that the wall had been built by PT KAI and that the company had not designed the wall to anticipate having to hold such an amount of waste.

'€œIt would be better to wait for police investigation,'€ he continued.

Separately, PT KAI Regional Operation Jakarta spokesperson Bambang Suprayitno said the company have repeatedly told local residents not to throw garbage into the railway area, adding that the requests fell on deaf ears.

Having acknowledged that the wall collapsed due to the amount of the garbage it was holding, Bambang said he would wait for the result of the police investigation.

Contacted separately, Johannes Gea, a lawyer with Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) said that the victims or their family members had the right to file a civil lawsuit against both PT KAI, as the owner of the collapsed wall, and the city administration for failing to supervise the garbage pile-up.

According to Johannes, despite not directly causing the incident, KAI and city administration were negligent and thus partly responsible.

'€œThey should have been taught about the risk. PT KAI needs to maintain their separator wall, while the city administration, in this case the district head, should have known about the potential danger in his area,'€ Johannes said.

He went on to say that the most important thing when filing a civil lawsuit against the city administration or state officials was not to pursue material compensation but to aim to make sure that the administration does a better job in the future.

'€œWinning such a lawsuit is a difficult task as we have to fight against a powerful and resourceful party,'€ he continued.