JAKARTA, 7 August 2003 — Fears of a fresh wave of Islamist bombings swept across Indonesia on Tuesday, after a powerful car bomb exploded outside a luxury hotel in central Jakarta during the lunchtime rush, killing at least 14 people and injuring about 150.
The attack on the Marriott hotel, often used for functions by the US Embassy, came only two days before the first verdict is due in the trials of the alleged perpetrators of last October’s Bali bombing in which 202 people were killed.
No warning was given and no one has claimed responsibility for the blast, which interrupted the call to prayer at 12.45 p.m. in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
Body parts and ripped clothing were strewn across the Marriott’s forecourt, lobby and main cafe as the blast blew out dozens of windows in the hotel and neighbouring buildings, one of which houses several embassies. “People were screaming, panicking,” said Sodik, a witness who was having lunch on the 27th floor of an adjacent building. “I thought it was an earthquake.”
The worst-affected area was the hotel’s lobby and ground-floor cafe, only a few meters from the Toyota Kijang minivan which police believe contained the bomb.
One survivor, who gave her name as Audina, said she only escaped with a few scratches because a pillar in the cafe shielded her from the worst of the devastation. “There was a huge bang, incredible heat and then all this glass came crashing down on us,” she said.
“It was clear it was a bomb. People were screaming and falling over trying to get out. Luckily we could get out to the street straight away so we did not have to go past the burning cars outside or the burning and crying victims.” Audina said that when she and her friends reached the road they saw several cars and people on fire. “I will never forget these taxi drivers,” she said. “They were on fire and screaming. Luckily two men helped them.”
“It was panic. Mad panic,” said Stephen Mellor, a foreign resident who was parking his car less than 100 meters from the hotel at the time of the blast. “The police and paramedics did what they could, but they seemed overwhelmed. People were almost hijacking cars in desperation and piling the injured in them to take to hospital.”
A man who asked not to be named said he was saved by a thick wooden door. “We were just going into a meeting room above the cafe when the bomb went off,” he said. “I was behind the door so escaped being hit. We ran out and down to the lobby. There was blood everywhere. There were people covered in blood, there were ripped clothes and I just kept running to get out. I have never seen anything like it.” Diplomats believe the most likely culprit is Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian Islamist terrorist group linked to and at times funded by Al-Qaeda. A Dutchman was among the fatalities, but no Britons were thought to have been among the casualties, the Foreign Office said.
There was confusion Tuesday night over the total number of dead. The Indonesian Red Cross disputed the hospital figure and said up to 14 people had died and 150 were wounded. “Thirteen bodies have been evacuated to hospitals while the last one, a human head without body, was just found by a Red Cross team on the fifth floor of the hotel,” a senior Red Cross official said.
The bomb blew a 1.5 meter-wide crater in the forecourt, which collapsed beneath the minivan into the car park below. Indonesia’s police chief, Gen. Da’i Bachtiar, said 22 vehicles were damaged or destroyed.
A security guard at the neighboring Plaza Mutiara, Taufan Sidik, said the panic was so great in his building after the majority of the windows were blown out and the building caught fire that one woman jumped from several floors up. “I’m pretty certain she died,” he said.