Dozens Injured as Part of Indonesia Stock Exchange Building Collapses
Just as the people working in the Indonesia Stock Exchange building (Central Jakarta) were preparing for the lunch break, an indoor balcony, located in the main hall of the building, collapsed. The balcony fell into the ground level, just after 12 o'clock noon, in Tower 2. According to local media, dozens of people are injured and transported to nearby hospitals.
The Indonesia Stock Exchange building is now being evacuated. At the moment there is no reason to suspect a terrorist attack. More likely, the collapse was caused by a weakness in the building structure. Based on the reports in local media, there are no heavily wounded or deaths.
When the market reopened at 13:30 pm local Jakarta time (Monday 15/01), Indonesia's benchmark Jakarta Composite Index went into the red zone temporarily (possibly because the collapse triggered concern about a terrorist attack) before recovering soon. By 13:45 pm the benchmark index was up 0.08 percent to 6,375.03 points.
Images on local television channels show significant debris near the entrance of the building. Also a Starbucks store, located indoors at ground level, was struck.
Various students from Palembang are among the wounded (with injuries such as broken bones). A total of 95 students from the economy department of the Bina Darma university in Palembang made a trip to the Indonesia Stock Exchange building on Monday. CCTV images show a large group of people (presumably the students) were walking on the balcony when suddenly it collapsed under their weight (see video below).
Considering there were also people walking beneath the balcony, it is a miracle no-one died due to the incident. Local media report around 75 injured people.