Waste mound collapse at Indonesia's largest landfill kills 7

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A massive avalanche of garbage at Indonesia’s largest landfill killed seven people after heavy overnight rain triggered a rubbish dump collapse, officials said Tuesday.

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, three scavengers and two food stall sellers who had been working or resting near the landfill, while six people managed to escape the disaster. No more missing people were reported by families as of Tuesday morning, Bahari said.

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 search, noting that rain was forecast in the area and further movement in the trash mounds could endanger those conducting the search.

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 efforts to overhaul Indonesia’s waste management system.

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.