Anna Purba, a spokeswoman for the state-owned KAI rail company, told local television in the early morning hours that seven people had been killed in the crash and 81 were injured.

She said rescuers were working to get to two people still trapped, alive, in the wreckage.

From The Weekender

Our second Instagram account is the real one

In an act of rebellion against overexposure and performative social media, Gen Z are turning to smaller, controlled spaces on social media where they can be their authentic selves.

Read on The Weekender

One survivor told AFP of the horrific moments after a long-distance train slammed into the stationary commuter train she was in, trapping people inside mangled carriages.

"I thought I was going to die," Sausan Sarifah, 29, said from her bed at the RSUD Bekasi hospital where she was admitted with a broken arm and a deep cut to one thigh.

She was on her way home from work, she said, when her train stopped at the Bekasi Timur station some 25 kilometers from Jakarta.

Morning Brief

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.

Delivered straight to your inbox three times weekly, this curated briefing provides a concise overview of the day's most important issues, covering a wide range of topics from politics to culture and society.

View More Newsletter

By registering, you agree with The Jakarta Post's Privacy Policy

Sign Up

Thank You

for signing up our newsletter!

Please check your email for your newsletter subscription.

View More Newsletter

"It all happened so fast, in a split second," Sausan recounted.

"There were two announcements from the commuter train. Everyone was ready to get off, and then suddenly there was the sound of the locomotive, really loud," she said.

"There was no time to get out, and everyone ended up piled up inside the train, crushed on top of one another. I don’t know how the person underneath me is doing."

She said she had feared suffocating to death in the human pile-up, and worried that some pinned underneath didn't make it.

"Thank God I was on top, so I could be evacuated quickly," said Sausan.

According to Franoto Wibowo, a spokesman for rail operator KAI, a taxi appears to have clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.

From The Weekender

What women want, and the gap men are still trying to close

While millennial and Gen Z women were raised to chase careers, the same generation of men were not taught to do chores or be vulnerable. How can men step up?

Read on The Weekender

At the station, chaotic scenes unfolded in the aftermath of the crash, with rescue workers shouting for oxygen tanks as ambulances stood by in a snaking queue, lights flashing.

An AFP reporter at the scene witnessed people being carried out of the wreckage on gurneys and loaded into waiting ambulances as hundreds of bystanders looked on, some seemingly in shock.

As rescuers worked to free many more trapped in the crushed train carriages, Deputy House Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said the toll could rise.

"Judging from the evacuation process that is still under way, it is possible that the number of victims may continue to rise," he told reporters at the scene.

Franoto told Kompas TV the military, fire brigade, the national search and rescue agency, and the Red Cross were aiding in the evacuation effort.

Jakarta police chief Asep Edi Suheri said the long-distance train had crashed into the last, women-only, carriage of the commuter train.

All the victims were in the commuter train, and all 240-odd passengers on the other train had been evacuated safely, according to Purba.

The collision caused "significant damage to several train carriages", the Jakarta search and rescue agency said in a statement.

"The incident caused a number of passengers to suffer injuries, and several victims were reported to be trapped inside the carriages due to the force of the impact," it added.

The agency said rescuers were "carrying out the evacuation process for the trapped victims using extrication equipment to free them from the wrecked train structures".

Eva Chairista, 39, told AFP she had rushed to the RSUD hospital after hearing that her sister-in-law, who she named only as 27-year-old Fira, had been injured in the crash.

She arrived to a frenetic scene of medical triage.

"The doctor told us to be patient, there are many whose condition is worse than my sister-in-law’s," she said.

The last major train crash in the Southeast Asian country killed four crew members and injured about two dozen people elsewhere in West Java in January 2024.

Transport accidents are not uncommon in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation where buses, trains and even planes are often old and poorly maintained.

Sixteen people were killed when a commuter train crashed into a minibus on a level crossing in Jakarta in 2015.

Popular

Orangutan uses canopy bridge to cross fragmented habitat for ‘first time’

Lawmakers urge modesty for regional leaders after Samarinda unrest

Inflation won’t stop at pump