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fire that broke out in a mall in Depok, West Java, on Wednesday, demonstrates how the neighboring city lacks safety equipment.

Depok Firefighters and Disaster Management Agency was only able to evacuate people trapped in the apartment tower above the mall through emergency stairs as it does not have a skylift crane.

The apartment tower, which is integrated with the five-story Cinere Bellevue mall, has 18 floors, which made it hard to evacuate residents without a crane.

Skylift cranes are considered too expensive for the city, the regional income of which is Rp 2 trillion (US$148 million) this year.

“The price of a skylift crane is Rp 30 billion. I hope we will have one by 2018,” said agency head Yayan Arianto, adding that the crane would be 60 meters tall.

Even though it was only the mall that was on fire and a crane was not needed to extinguish the flames, nine apartment residents were trapped on the 16th to top floor of the building.

Hence, armed with only oxygen masks, the firefighters managed to evacuate the residents through the emergency stairs, although two people had to be taken to the hospital after being overcome by smoke, Yayan added. No fatalities were reported.

Meanwhile, the Jakarta Firefighters and Disaster Management Agency lent a hand to extinguish the fire and took its skylift crane to the scene in case it was needed.

The fire is thought to have been caused by a short circuit in a generator in the basement at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

It took firefighters 40 hours to completely extinguish the fire, or by 5 a.m. on Friday, with 12 fire trucks from the Depok agency and 10 from the Jakarta agency.

With 50 tall buildings — some of them still under construction — Depok firefighters could face serious problems if a fire should break out in one of them.

Yayan said a building was considered tall if it had three or more floors.

The agency has given assurances that evacuations would go smoothly in a similar incident as buildings were checked regularly.

“All tall buildings are checked once a year to ensure they can be evacuated in the case of a disaster, including a fire,” Yayan said. The agency also checks karaoke halls three times a year because they are more prone to fire.

Jakarta agency head Subejo gave assurances that his agency was always ready to help Depok firefighters as long as a fire was located in the border area between the two cities, a request for help was received and extra fire-fighting equipment was required.