JAKARTA—At least 30 people died on Friday after a fire swept through a small factory producing matchsticks in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, authorities said.
The blaze broke out at midday in the makeshift facility located in a residential area, killing 27 adults and three children, said Riadil Akhir Lubis, head of the provincial disaster mitigation agency.
Police are investigating the cause of the fire, he said.
#NSTworld: A video circulated on social media showed emergency workers inspecting the site and what appeared to be charred bodies in the smouldering ruins.https://t.co/c2bM3TwVHE
— New Straits Times (@NST_Online) June 21, 2019
“(The children) were probably not workers. Their parents, who lived nearby, brought them to work,” said Irwan Syahri, head of the local disaster agency, told Metro TV.
A video circulated on social media showed emergency workers inspecting the site and what appeared to be charred bodies in the smouldering ruins.
Indonesia has a patchy industrial safety record. In 2017, a series of explosions and a fire killed 47 workers and injured dozens at a fireworks factory on the outskirts of Jakarta.
By Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Fransiska Nangoy
