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Jakarta checks safety of apartment buildings after Banten earthquake
Residents in Kalibata City apartment complex in South Jakarta reported that the emergency exits on the ground floor of several towers were locked and that the alarms did not function properly.
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Two people catch up at a park in front of Kalibata City apartments in Rawajati, South Jakarta. (thejakartapost.com/rez)
T
he Jakarta administration is looking into safety issues in apartment complexes in the city, ranging from failures in emergency facilities to cracks in walls, following Friday’s 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the southwestern coast of Banten.
Residents in Kalibata City apartment complex in South Jakarta reported that the emergency exits on the ground floor of several towers were locked and that the alarms did not function properly.
Meanwhile, the quake is believed to be the cause of a long crack along one side of a wall in Kebagusan City apartments, also in South Jakarta.
Jakarta Spatial Planning Agency head Heru Hermawanto told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that he had sent officers to investigate and was currently waiting for their reports.
“Such cases should not be happening. The residents should have been able to exit the emergency stairwell on the ground floor,” he said, adding that residents should never use elevators during emergency evacuations, unless they are emergency elevators.
Rudi, a resident of Kalibata City’s Nusa Indah tower, said that he and other residents inside the emergency stairwell were shocked to discover the door at the bottom was locked.
“We were trapped inside,” he said.
