Bantar Gebang Facility: Garbage avalanche at Indonesia’s largest landfill kills at least five, several missing

A massive avalanche of garbage at Indonesia’s largest landfill killed at least five people and left several others missing after heavy overnight rain triggered a rubbish dump collapse, officials said Monday.

More than 300 search-and-rescue personnel, using heavy machinery and sniffer dogs, were deployed to the sprawling dump site late Sunday at the Bantargebang Integrated Waste Treatment Facility in Bekasi, a city just outside the capital of Jakarta.

Rescuers worked cautiously amid unstable heaps of waste, said Desiana Kartika Bahari, who heads Jakarta’s Search and Rescue Office.

She said the victims included two garbage truck drivers and two food stall sellers who had been working or resting near the landfill, while four people managed to escape the disaster. Rescuers, including police, soldiers and volunteers, were still searching for at least three people reported missing, Bahari said.

“We had not ruled out the possibility of more victims,” she said, “We are still gathering data to confirm how many vehicles and workers were caught beneath the debris.”

Photos and videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed excavators digging through the collapsed mound, where several garbage trucks and small food stalls were buried.

The National Disaster Management Agency’s spokesperson, Abdul Muhari, urged strict safety protocols during the ongoing search, noting that weather forecasts for the next two days indicate potential rain across Jakarta and its nearby satellite cities.

He warned that the unstable collapsed material could trigger additional ground movement, putting rescue teams at further risk.

Sunday’s deadly collapse renewed scrutiny of Bantargebang, a critical but overwhelmed landfill that receives most of Greater Jakarta’s daily household waste.

The site has faced repeated warnings about capacity, prompting national efforts to overhaul Indonesia’s waste management system.

In January, a similar collapse of garbage and debris buried or trapped workers in low-slung buildings at a landfill in the Philippines, killing at least four people, injuring a dozen and leaving more than 30 others missing.

In 2005, 31 people were killed and dozens went missing after a 7 meters (23 feet) rubbish dump collapsed following heavy rain, triggering a landslide that buried or damaged 60 houses in two West Java villages near the Indonesian city of Bandung.

Late last year, the government announced a two-year deadline to clear Bantargebang through an accelerated waste-to-energy project aimed at reducing chronic over reliance on open dumping. The initiative, backed by a new presidential regulation intended to streamline licensing and encourage investment, calls for converting refuse into electrical or thermal energy.