Two technicians have died in a fire at the Cyber 1 data center in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The fire broke out on Thursday at noon (0500 UTC), when servers "exploded" on the second floor of the Cyber building in Mampang, South Jakarta in the Cyber Data Center, a carrier-neutral data center, that is home to numerous digital services. Thick smoke engulfed the building, and the fire was brought under control within half an hour by the Jakarta Fire Service, which sent 22 fire trucks and 100 firefighters.
Several IT services have been affected by the fire, according to local media.
Servers exploded
The fire began when several servers exploded, the head of the South Jakarta Fire and Rescue service, Herbert Flider Lumban, told Bisnis: "The source of the fire was in the server room on the 2nd floor, after our members went inside, the source of the fire only came from the server room."
Three staff were trapped in the smoke-filled room, said Lumban: "One died on the spot, was in a corner when our team entered, then the other two were taken to the hospital, but when they arrived at the hospital, one person died," he said. One casualty was a 19-year old technician, the other died en route to Mampang General Hospital. Both were apparently visitors to the building.
Another fire department spokesperson, Mulat Wijayanto, told Tempo they were killed by smoke inhalation: “[The victims] died not due to injuries they sustained but because of inhaling too much smoke.”
The cause of the fire has not been definitively stated, but Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria ruled out smoking on a visit to the building after the fire. “What is certain is that no one smoked in this building because this building must be safe. There might be a short circuit. Let’s wait for the results of the inspection,” said Riza, according to Tempo.
The fire has not affected government data, which is stored on a different floor, said Riza “Other than government data, there are also important private data, but Alhamdulillah, [the fire] only broke out on the second floor,” he added.
Other services were impacted by the fire which caused a temporary power outage. Indonesians and visitors found they could not register mobile phones, as the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) service was run from the Centralized Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) in a data center within the building, according to the Communication and Informatics Ministry.
Local Indonesian services including ShopeePay, IPOT, and Magic were also disrupted.
The Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers (APJII) also said its data center in the building is safe, although services were interrupted because power was switched off during the fire. "We have checked [the situation has started to be safe], there was a problem in the electricity which we finally turned off because we were worried that the temperature would rise, because we were on the first floor and the fire was on the second floor," the Chairman of APJII Muhamad Arif Angga told Bisnis.
AJPII servers were switched on again at 5pm after being checked for damage, and are working as normal, said Anga: "Currently, we say that the APJII data center is still safe, but of course we will continue to do physical checks and our team will continue to be on standby," he said. AJPII servers were switched on again at 5pm after being checked for damage, and are working as normal, said Anga: "Currently, we say that the APJII data center is still safe, but of course we will continue to do physical checks and our team will continue to be on standby," he said.
Other providers in the building include NTT.
It's not the first fire in the Cyber Building. Bisnis reports an eighth-floor blaze in 2015 that did not affect any IT equipment or lead to any injuries.
