“I’ve never smoked in my life and no one in my family smokes, so when doctors told me that I had lung cancer, I was very shocked,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the late National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman, told The Jakarta Post in an interview last October. “But there are many people who smoke cigarettes at the BNPB office, so maybe that also affects me.”

Eight months later, Sutopo died while undergoing intensive cancer treatment in Guangzhou, China.

There is no medical evidence that Sutopo’s stage four lung cancer was caused by exposure to the cigarette smoke produced by his colleagues in the office, but secondhand smoke is known to cause cancer, affecting the heart and blood vessels, increasing the risk of heart attack, strokes and other diseases.

Sutopo’s death has sparked  discussion about the dangers faced by “passive” smokers who involuntarily inhale nicotine and toxic chemicals the same way intentional smokers do.

One staff member at the BNPB headquarters, who wished to remain anonymous, said she was not surprised that Sutopo had partly blamed the secondhand smoke in the building for his lung cancer.

“I think 80 percent of the staff are smokers and even though there are several no-smoking signs in the building, many ignore them. They still smoke in the emergency stairways, even though they know the stairways are also non-smoking areas. Even our guests join them to smoke in the stairways. They often leave the door open so our room fills with smoke,” she said.

The air circulation system worsens the situation because the building uses a central air conditioner and there are no windows that can be opened to let the smoke out.

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