A powerful explosion went off outside the Australian embassy in central Jakarta on Thursday, killing up to nine people and injuring as many as 100 injured in the blast, sources said.
Officials at the nearby MMC Hospital in the Kuningan district, home to many foreign embassies, said that five Indonesians had been killed, including an embassy security guard and driver, and 99 others were brought to the hospital for treatment, reported the state-run Antara news agency said.
Local private Elshinta radio reported that nine people had been killed and at least 90 wounded.
”I came outside afterwards and saw bodies,” one office worker who was in a nearby building at the time of the blast.
”I don’t know how many, but they looked like security guards. I worry that all the guards died.”
The iron gate to the entrance of the Australian embassy was completely destroyed, along with the police truck parked outside, and at least two motorcycles. A yellow police tarpaulin covered a body on one of the motorcycles.
Prime Minister John Howard said he had spoken to Australian Ambassador David Ritchie shortly after the blast — which left a crater three metres deep just outside the embassy gate.
”The embassy fence held, but the gate was demolished by the explosion,” Howard said.
”All of the Australian staff have been accounted for, and safe, and except a few minor injuries, there have been no deaths or injuries. There are a handful of locally-engaged staff who have not been accounted for, but it may well be they were in other parts of the city when the explosion occurred.”
Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said, ”It is clearly a terrorist attack, it was outside the Australian embassy, you would have to conclude that it was directed towards Australia,” he told reporters in Adelaide.
Downer will leave shortly for Jakarta accompanied by spy agency ASIO chief Dennis Richardson and nine Australian police bomb experts.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has cut short her attendance at a royal wedding in Brunei to return to Jakarta immediately, said government sources.
Buildings around the embassy were partially destroyed with many windows blown out and shattered by the force of the blast.
Eyewitnesses said people were evacuated into ambulances which were rushed to the scene immediately after the explosion.
”I was working next door and heard the blast and suddenly everything came down,” said Yuni Sasi (27) who works for BDO Tanubrata, an accounting firm in the building next to the blast.
”I thought it was an earthquake, but it was a bomb,” Yuni said, sobbing and sitting on a curb next to one of her injured co-workers.
”I went outside and saw blood and people injured from the glass everywhere. There were a lot of wounded people, and very seriously, especially the security guards.”
”We are happy to be alive. We are very shocked,” she added.
The explosion, which took place at about 10:30am. local time (3.30am GMT), was heard as far as five-kilometres away. White smoke billowed into the sky following the blast.
No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion.
It was also not known whether the blast was caused by a suicide bomber.
The explosion took place less then two weeks before the second round of presidential elections on September 20, where incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri will contest with front-runner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Two days ago the United States State Department issued a travel warning for Indonesia to American citizens ahead the upcoming final round of the presidential polls, for security reasons.
Indonesia, home to the world’s most populous Muslim nation, witnessed the October 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, as well as the August 5, 2003 blast outside the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, claiming the lives of 12 people.
Indonesian police and Western countries, including Australia, have accused the al-Qaeda-linked regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) behind the Bali blasts and the Marriott bombing. – Sapa-DPA