Administration speeds up safety-check on parking buildings

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta Property Management and Control Agency is accelerating safety checks on parking buildings in the city following a recent accident at the Menara Jamsostek building that claimed one life.

Agency head Hari Sasongko said it would immediately close parking facilities not meeting the construction standards of a 2007 degree.

All carparks had to submit building designs to the agency or else wait for agency officers to inspect them, he said.

Hari said owners of buildings closed for safety reasons would have to first submit new building designs and then rebuild, adding that both design plans and the finished work would have to pass agency approval.

"The offenders must consider all possible collision factors in the designs."

Hari said the agency would ask for help from universities to carry out checks at some 400 parking buildings so as to complete the process by mid-year.

A 2007 agency decree provides that walls in parking buildings must be strong enough to withstand collisions.

The agency has inspected 22 parking buildings for safety following a string of carpark accidents.

On Tuesday, a 42-year-old chauffeur died after accidentally backing his car through a steel fence at Jamsostek building on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta.

The incident took place at around 10:30 a.m., after the man -- who had 15-years professional driving experience -- dropped his employer at the building.

The car hit a moving vehicle, causing minor injuries to the occupants and landing upside down.

Two carpark accidents occurred last year.

At Permata Hijau International Trade Center in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta, a family of three was killed when their vehicle fell from the sixth floor of the garage.

The second accident occurred when a driver lost control and rolled backwards, smashing through a meter-high wall on a spiral ramp of a carpark.

No one was injured in that accident.