SINGAPORE: Mr Jonathan Ng’s life took a turn for the worse four years ago when he was caught for unlicensed money lending, and was handed a hefty jail sentence.
While serving time, Mr Ng was always worried about the future.
“When I first stepped into prison, the phobia was there. What would my job opportunities be like after release? ” he recalled.
Now 28, Mr Ng works as a supervisor at popular restaurant chain, Swensen’s. He told Channel NewsAsia that he is grateful to be part of a supportive team, which has become his greatest support system.
“When I first started work here, the stigma was definitely there. Being an ex-convict is not easy. You are afraid of how people look at you, how people judge your past and all that,” said Mr Ng.
“I’m thankful to say I’ve joined an outlet where people are not so judgmental. The people here don’t treat me as an ex-convict, they treat me as a normal person. Everybody deserves a second chance. So, why not me?” he added.
His employers have been impressed with his work so far. They have seen tremendous improvement in his attitude and have even earmarked him for leadership roles.
Jonathan Ng is a supervisor at the Swensen’s outlet.
ABR Holdings, which runs Swensen’s, is an example of a company that provides ex-offenders a second shot at life. The company is registered with the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) – a statutory board under the Home Affairs Ministry that prepares inmates for the reintegration into the workforce.
Over the past eight years, ABR Holdings has employed some 34 ex-offenders, and eight of them are still working full-time with the company.
“I would say the perception has changed over the years,” said Benny Ng, general manager for Swensen’s.
“During the journey, we tried to experiment, we took in a few more ex-offenders and we found that after a bit of job redesign, these ex-offenders are actually doing equally well as the rest of employees,” he added.
Companies like Swensen’s also put in place systems to help ex-offenders adjust to working life.
“We coach them, all the managers are well informed where they came from, what’s their background. We’re also careful with the words we choose, so as not to trigger any anger,” said Benny Ng.
Jonathan is one of some 2,061 inmates who underwent SCORE’s employment programmes before he was released from prison last year. The number is up from 1,740 in 2012.
While still in prison, inmates are able to undergo professional courses under the Workforce Skills Qualification framework. There are 33 courses to choose from, with more than 20,000 training places available.
Depending on their interests, inmates may be assigned to various courses in areas like operations, manufacturing and culinary arts.
After their training, inmates are then matched to jobs that suit their skills and personality traits. They also work with a job coach, who is tasked to help inmates make the transition from prison life to working life easier.
Jonathan Ng serving a customer at Swensen’s.
“The inmates stay inside the system for a period of time. So when they come out, they usually face issues like financial problems, housing,” said SCORE job coach Justin Ng.
“Usually these issues get them distracted, and they try to solve these problems first before they want to embark on something more serious like employment. So if we’re able to get them out of the way, usually they’ll be able to see a clearer path, to see how employment will be beneficial for them,” he added.
Over the past five years, more than 96 per cent of inmates secured jobs before release, with about 60 per cent of them staying in the job for at least six months.
MORE EX-OFFENDERS JOINING RETAIL, LANDSCAPING
According to SCORE, the number of employers registering with them has also been increasing from some 3,457 companies in 2012 to more than 5,000 in 2016.
There has also been a shift in the type of industries that ex-offenders enter. While jobs in the F&B sector still make the bulk of employment for inmates, employers in other industries like retail, hospitality and even landscaping are coming on board.
“SCORE consistently targets potential employers with evergreen employer demands. We target industries who have remained resilient during economic downturn who can offer employment opportunities at all time,” explained Mr Freddy Low, senior assistant director (job retention support).
Employers must fulfill the basic requirement in order to be registered with SCORE. This means they must comply with the Employment Act and CPF Act, pay market rate salary and adopt good workplace practices.
But job coaches say that the most important thing is to create a conducive work environment, as this will make it less likely for ex-inmates to re-offend.
“One of the main factors that may influence their change in behaviour is obviously the work environment they find themselves in,” adds job coach Justin Ng.
“If they are able to form a connection, camaraderie between them and their colleagues, supervisors, they will be able to build some form of attachment to the company as well as loyalty. In doing so, they will find more value in doing well and contributing to not just their company but to themselves, their family and society at large.”
A Singaporean family of four have been sitting tight in their hotel room in Hoi An since Saturday night, as Typhoon Damrey hit the southern coast of Vietnam.
Mr Roy Sim, his wife Stacy Lo and their daughters, aged five and two, are holed up in their second-storey room at the Green Heaven Hoi An Resort and Spa as water reaches chest-high in the streets of the popular tourist town.
In the hotel, which is on higher ground, the water is waist-high on the first floor, Mr Sim told Channel NewsAsia. Guests were being evacuated with boats, which sailed right into the hotel lobby on Sunday (Nov 5).
Residents and tourists are transported by boats through floodwaters in the tourist town of Hoi An on Nov 5, 2017. (Photo: AFP)
They expect the water to rise further but with two young children in tow, they decided to stay put for the time being.
“We have decided to stay on in the hotel as floating around in a boat with heavy rains is not a risk we want to take with our two girls,” he said in a Facebook update on Sunday afternoon.
Their room is still “comfortable” and they have instant noodles and eggs on standby, he added.
Most of the people in the low-lying houses around them have been evacuated, he said, and there are about 14 hotel guests left. The hotel staff have stayed behind with them and have been “very helpful”, he said.
“There’s not much information in English online, but the hotel staff have been helpful in providing us their opinions, and what they’ve been hearing on Vietnamese TV, so that helps,” he wrote.
Mr Sim and his family flew to Hoi An last Tuesday for a holiday. He heard about the incoming typhoon on Friday but did not expect it to affect Hoi An so severely.
“We’re supposed to fly back to Singapore this Tuesday. Hope the flight will not be affected,” he told CNA.
For now, they will wait out the bad weather, he said.
Flooded streets of Hoi An. (Photo: Roy Sim)
Typhoon Damrey which made landfall on Saturday, is the worst in decades to strike the country’s southern coastal region, an area normally spared the typhoons that typically hit further north.
More than 30,000 people were evacuated in central Vietnam and at least 27 have been reported dead.
GEORGE TOWN: As rain lashed down on the tarmac of Penang International Airport on Saturday afternoon (Nov 5), Singaporean Felix Chen saw no sign of his SilkAir plane at the departure gate.
Flight MI351 was due to take off at 6pm, but as of 5.45pm it still had not landed at Penang.
Mr Chen, who was in Penang for work, then had a bad feeling that the heavy rain that afternoon would significantly delay his trip home.
“As I was on my way to the airport from Gurney Plaza, half the wheel of my Grab car was submerged in water. I could see huge puddles of water everywhere and the rain poured continuously. The wind was so strong,” said Mr Chen.
The heavy rain that started as he made his way to the airport would continue throughout the night and into the next day, causing massive floods throughout the city.
When airport staff announced at around 5.45pm that the SilkAir flight had been unable to land due to bad weather, passengers started to show discontent.
“Some were angry or worried. They raised questions with the ground staff on when the plane was going to arrive, and when they would be allowed to board,” Mr Chen said.
As things got heated, SilkAir ground staff then tried their best to calm down the passengers, assuring them that a solution would be found.
“They were so professional … we were given frequent updates on the situation. At 7.45pm, 9.15pm and 11pm etc, even though we did not approach them, they would come to us and update us what was going on,” Mr Chen said.
Passengers were also given the option of staying at a hotel or taking a rescue flight, although passengers who chose to stay at a hotel had to turn around to the airport due to the flood.
Other passengers opted to take connecting flights out of Penang to Kuala Lumpur.
A SilkAir ground staff running to help bring passengers their new boarding passes. (Photo: Felix Chen/ Facebook)
“The SilkAir staff were particularly helpful here as they even ran to and fro the boarding passs printing area and the departure gate to make arrangements for the passengers,” Mr Chen added.
The remaining passengers, including Mr Chen, eventually boarded a replacement flight, MI9352 at 3am on Sunday, after waiting at the airport for nine hours.
Mr Chen heaped praise on SilkAir ground staff in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“You guys handled it professionally and I’m sure it’s the best that you could have done during the time of uncertainty,” he wrote.
THREE FLIGHTS UNABLE TO LAND: PENANG AIRPORT
Penang International Airport confirmed that three flights which were scheduled to land at Penang International Airport between 4.30pm and 6pm on Saturday were either forced to turn back to KLIA or diverted to Langkawi International Airport.
“One flight from KLIA had to turn back while two others from KLIA and Singapore were diverted to Langkawi International Airport and have landed safely there,” said Penang International Airport senior manager Ramzi Ahmad.
Mr Chen said that staff had informed passengers that MI351 was diverted to Langkawi.
Mr Ramzi added that at least four flights from Penang Airport could not depart to their respective destinations due to the bad weather.
He said that operations at airport were still running smoothly and so far, the airport has not been hit by floods despite heavy rain.
HANOI – At Vietnam’s Old Flames market, curious customers peruse love letters and pick through perfumes, candles and clothes – relics from failed relationships put on sale by forlorn lovers.
Entrepreneurial exes meet once a month, bringing their baggage – emotional and literal – to a converted cottage on a leafy Hanoi street to find a new home for items they can no longer bear to look at.
It’s also a means of moving on.
“(After a breakup) I’m very sad, I can’t drink or eat… but after a while I pick myself up. The past is in the past,” said Phuc Thuy, 29, who was selling clothes, purses and even a tube of toothpaste she acquired during a former romance.
The market has steadily grown since it opened in February, especially among Vietnam’s social-media obsessed youth, unabashed about sharing intimate details of their everyday lives.
“Young people are more open-minded and they want to share deeply and widely to overcome pain, without suffering alone,” said founder Dinh Thang, as a visitor strummed love songs on a guitar nearby.
He started the market after a few bitter breakups left him with unwanted paraphernalia from a now extinguished passion.
He proudly displays love letters, heart-strewn birthday cards and sentimental scrapbooks from his ex as a reminder that such memorabilia need not be painful forever.
He’s also opened the doors to vendors selling new items, and is planning to duplicate the concept in Vietnam’s commercial capital Ho Chi Minh City next year.
For those who haven’t quite reached Thang’s stage of emotional post-breakup enlightenment, he’s set up a message board to pen notes to exes.
“To all my ex-lovers, I’m sorry because I feel like we never really knew each other,” read one remorse-tinged message. Another was more succinct: “I’M FINE!!!”
Thang hopes the market will make the topic of breakups less taboo in Vietnam, a conservative communist nation of 93 million where just a generation ago arranged marriages were more common.
Social attitudes have changed as the country has become increasingly globalised and as its vast young population – more than 50 per cent of the country is under age 30 – embrace western dating norms.
That includes internet dating.
“Many young people meet online, date online and break up online,” said Bui Manh Tien, Youth Programme Officer at United Nations Population Fund in Vietnam.
Today, men and women are waiting longer to get married and divorce rates are also ticking up, according to official figures.
“We don’t want to give up our freedom too early and get tied to family responsibility when we’re young, we want to enjoy life before getting married,” Tien, 25, added.
For some, the Old Flames market is simply a place to make new connections, romantic or otherwise.
“I came here to meet people and to see the goods, explore why they used to be a very beautiful memory,” said Tieu Khuy, before picking up a used copy of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”.
BANGKOK – A 44-year-old man has died from hypothermia after going to bed with three fans blowing cool air at him.
The man turned on the fans before going to sleep on Thursday night but the sudden early-morning temperature drop turned into a fatal tragedy in Chaiyaphum’s Muang district.
Following the discovery of Sobthawee Boonkua’s body at his relative’s house in Tambon Nai Muang, Pol Lt Colonel Thanasit Apiboonworaset of Muang Chaiyaphum police went to inspect the scene at 8.30am along with a medical examiner and emergency workers.
His elder brother Saravuth Boonkua said Sobthawee had gone to stay at the house to take care of their ailing 86-year-old mother Udom Boonkua.
He said Sobthawee, a healthy man, has gone to bed with three fans directing cool air at him without realizing that Chaiyaphum’s temperature can be much lower at night.
A medical examiner said Sobthawee had died from hypothermia because his body couldn’t adjust to the sudden cold and had gone into shock.
The family accepted his cause of death and said they would collect his body for religious rites later.
SEOUL – North Korea on Sunday (Nov 5) warned Donald Trump against making “reckless remarks” as the US president began a marathon Asian tour dominated by the nuclear threat from Pyongyang.
Ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Americans were pressing for the president’s early impeachment because tough remarks by a “spiritually instable” Trump could bring about “nuclear disaster to the US mainland”.
After arriving in Tokyo on Sunday, Trump warned that “no dictator” should underestimate the United States, in a thinly veiled reference to North Korea.
Trump, who will also visit South Korea this week, has been engaged in an escalating war of words with the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, trading threats and personal insults.
In his maiden address to the UN General Assembly he threatened to “totally destroy” the North if it attacked the US or its allies.
Rodong Sinmum cited Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former officials as saying Trump was pointlessly escalating tensions with the North.
But the president has not come to his senses and instead is “seriously stimulating the DPRK (North Korea) by making foolish remarks”, the paper said in a commentary carried by the KCNA state news agency.
“If the US misjudges the DPRK’s toughest will and dares to act recklessly, the latter will be compelled to deal a resolute and merciless punishment upon the former with the mobilisation of all forces,” it added.
Tensions are high after the North’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September, along with a series of ballistic missile launches in recent months. The North says it now has the ability to launch nuclear strikes on the US mainland.
SINGAPORE: Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) and Monetary Authority of Singapore board member Ong Ye Kung unveiled the Industry Transformation Map (ITM) for the financial services sector on Monday (Oct 30).
Despite being Asia’s top performing and the world’s third most competitive financial centre, Singapore faces emerging competition and significant headwinds.
While emerging financial centres such as Shenzhen and Abu Dhabi are rapidly increasing their share of the global financial markets, technological disruptions such as FinTech and crypto-currency may result in the obsolescence of traditional banking and finance activities, including front-facing roles such as portfolio management and customer advisory, or back-end processes like the processing of transactions and data analytics.
Indeed, the rules and modus operandi of our global financial system will soon bear witness to vast changes.
Blockchain as a globally distributed ledger for instance shows huge potential in enabling business transactions to be performed without relying on financial intermediaries. However, many of these technological innovations, such as Blockchain, remain seriously underestimated due to a lack of familiarity.
For these reasons, the ITM will prove crucial for guiding financial sector development and ensuring Singapore’s competitiveness and global financial centre standing.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS
The ITM outlines key growth strategies for the financial sector that aim to generate greater productivity, attain higher growth rates, and create 4,000 jobs each year up to 2020.
These growth strategies include supporting Asia’s development, introducing programmes to upgrade skills and leveraging technological advancements.
With the growing prevalence of FinTech, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) seems to see this last strategy of facilitating technological advancement as a key focus of the ITM.
Strategies to encourage the adoption of technological tools include co-creating common utilities for electronic payments and digital ID, equipping financial sector professionals with IT skills, and investing in research and development to develop new solutions, such as distributed ledger inter-bank payment systems.
The ITM aims to achieve growth in financial sector real value-added of 4.3% and productivity growth of 2.4% annually. (Photo: AFP)
Aside from technological advancement and adoption, the ITM also aims to develop Singapore into a leading hub for wealth management, forex, fund management and domiciliation, infrastructural finance and Asian insurance.
However, while the ITM provides a broad view of the potential opportunities that can drive Singapore’s financial services sector for the coming years, it is not immediately clear how it aims to drive industry transformation.
After all, Singapore has long been a leading centre for wealth management, forex, and fund management. Its position as the most developed financial centre in Southeast Asia also makes it a natural source of infrastructural financing.
Furthermore, efforts to reskill and retrain financial sector professionals do not necessarily drive industry transformation, if the direction of the sector’s growth is not clear.
How then will the ITM spark off industry transformation? As with most things, the devil is in the details.
NEW PRACTICES AND SKILLS
First of all, it is important to note that the ITM functions much like a master plan. It outlines broad policy goals and directions, and lays out some of the policy frameworks that can lead towards the attainment of these goals.
For a better sense of the direction the sector is heading towards, we should turn our attention to the MAS and examine its stated priorities and initiatives to shape the sector.
The ITM was drawn up by MAS in close consultation with financial institutions and the tripartite movement. (Photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman)
In February, the MAS highlighted various measures to be implemented in support of the recommendations of the Committee on the Future Economy.
These include strengthening financing channels for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), simplifying the regulatory framework for venture capital managers, introducing dual class share structures for high-tech companies, and encouraging other sources of private sector financing for start-ups and entrepreneurs.
The MAS also emphasised its desire to develop and expand Singapore’s technology infrastructure, through the establishment of an electronic marketplace for trade finance assets, electronic trading platforms for forex, data infrastructure for natural catastrophe, cyber risk insurance and electronic payments platforms.
At a fundamental level, both the ITM and the MAS’s raft of policy measures emphasise the growing prevalence of technology in financial transactions and services. These can range from cashless payments to the use of data analytics to ensure a closer fit between consumers and financial products.
Seen from this perspective, Singapore’s roadmap for financial sector transformation emphasises potentially disruptive shifts in the ways and processes through which financial services and products are bought and traded.
Hence in the medium to long term, existing financial markets such as wealth management, forex, and fund management will continue to factor heavily in Singapore’s financial services landscape.
However, it is within these markets that disruptions are occurring, giving rise to deep-seated shifts in the practices and processes that underpin financial transactions.
Singapore is currently the third largest forex centre globally. (File photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman)
In order to address these shifts, financial sector professionals must be equipped with the skills and competencies necessary for navigating an increasingly data-driven and technologically mediated financial sector.
An important element of such efforts involves preparing for changes in the nature of jobs in the financial sector.
For instance, the growing prevalence of robo-advisory services in wealth management may render the services of human wealth managers obsolete.
Through the use of automated algorithm-based portfolio management software, robo-advisors are capable of managing clients’ investments portfolios more efficiently and at lower cost.
More importantly, this means that wealth management firms will prioritise new skillsets like coding and algorithm-building over traditional networking skills.
In other words, wealth managers and other asset management firms will require more coders and data analysts, while relationship managers will need to take on a more strategic advisory, rather than client-facing, role.
More broadly speaking, the ITM alludes to potential shifts in the make-up of Singapore’s financial services sector. While the ITM emphasises areas such as wealth management, forex, infrastructural finance and FinTech, it places less emphasis on lending.
There are several possible reasons for this.
First, Singapore has already reached a peak in lending activities. According to a Deutsche Bank report released last year, debt burdens have risen from less than 240 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 265 per cent in 2015. This is largely due to Singapore’s high levels of private sector leverage, for which there are limits to greater growth.
Second, the growing role of FinTech and tech-based start-ups in providing financial loans and capitals suggest that the source and nature of lending activities may be shifting away from traditional banks and lenders towards new technologically-driven firms and start-ups.
New peer-to-peer lending and crowdsourcing portals are springing up in developed markets like the US for instance.
The ITM therefore foresees an increasingly technologically driven financial services sector that favours subsectors capable of leveraging new technologies to augment their business models.
These include wealth management, forex and FinTech, where robo-advisors, algorithms, and online trading platforms allow firms to provide financial services through real-time and automated platforms.
Banks have started rolling out mobile banking apps for both business and consumer use. (Photo: OCBC Bank)
The future of Singapore’s financial services sector, and the nature of the subsectors that it comprises, will therefore be driven by technological advancements. This means that the financial sector of tomorrow will increasingly by dominated by FinTech and select subsectors or firms that are capable of adapting FinTech to their existing businesses.
Third, where Singaporeans are smart and English-speaking, with the rule of law and anti-corruption culture strong, it makes sense to strengthen financial advisory as a core competency in an area we have a natural advantage in.
TRANSFORMING SINGAPORE’S ECONOMY
While the financial services ITM has provided a clear policy direction for the financial sector, its impact may extend far beyond financial services. Indeed, where sectors are interdependent, it is unsurprising that the government takes a central, strategic approach in planning out and implementing ITMs across all sectors.
For instance, the retail ITM emphasises expanding e-commerce and providing retailers with e-channels to expand their markets locally and internationally. Similarly, the wholesale trade ITM plans to build trade connectivity through digital marketplaces and platforms.
For these strategies to materialise, there needs to be an efficient and reliable infrastructure for online payments and transactions, along with the necessary skills and capabilities to operate and regulate this infrastructure, as well as platforms that will make up this infrastructure.
In short, the strategies introduced in the financial services ITM will contribute toward and complement digitalisation strategies in other ITMs.
This mirrors the key role that Singapore’s financial infrastructure plays in supporting the payments platforms used by retailers and wholesalers, such as NETS, credit card payments, or even funds transfers.
Singapore has moved towards providing more cashless payment options for everyday expenditures such as dining.
There is therefore a need to understand the recently released financial services ITM within this broader context and appreciate the linkages between the various ITMs, and the way they support and reinforce each other in Singapore’s ongoing economic transformation.
At the heart of this economic transformation lies technological disruption.
More specifically, our ability to transform our economy hinges on our willingness and ability to leverage on potentially disruptive technologies.
For the financial services ITM, technology is its biggest enabler for success; yet it is also its biggest obstacle.
Whether Singapore can successfully transform its financial sector for the future depends on our willingness to accept these new and technologically driven ways of managing our finances.
Woo Jun Jie is assistant professor in the Public Policy & Global Affairs Programme at Nanyang Technological University. He is also the author of “3-in-1: Governing a Global Financial Centre”.
At least 19 people have died and a dozen are missing after Typhoon Damrey barrelled into Vietnam, authorities said Sunday, just days before the country welcomes world leaders to the APEC summit.
The storm made landfall on Saturday and is the worst to hit the southern coastal region — an area normally spared typhoons which are usually hit further north — in decades.
Heavy rains inundated communities with floods as 130 km/h (80 mph) winds blew off roofs and knocked down electricity poles, according to Vietnam’s search and rescue office.
Coastal Khanh Hoa province, home to the popular white sand Nha Trang beach, was hardest hit with 14 dead and 10 injured, the government said.
More than 30,000 people, including foreign tourists, were evacuated from the area ahead of the storm.
A dozen flights were also cancelled while railway services were suspended, while local authorities in Phu Yen province said Tuy Hoa city “has never suffered such devastation”.
There were also reports of minor damage around 500 kilometres north in Danang, the coastal city where Vietnam will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next week.
The week-long gathering, which kicks off Monday, will bring together leaders including US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.
Vietnam has been pummelled by a dozen major storms since the start of 2017, with at least 240 people reported dead or missing in floods and landslides.
In September some 80 were killed after Typhoon Doksuri battered central provinces with rain, destroying thousands of homes and triggering severe floods.
The World Bank said natural disasters have killed more than 13,000 people and caused more than $6.4 billion in property damage to Vietnam over the past two decades.
TOKYO – An AI character was made an official resident of a busy central Tokyo district on Saturday (Nov 4), with the virtual newcomer resembling a chatty seven-year-old boy.
The boy named “Shibuya Mirai” does not exist physically, but he can have text conversations with humans on the widely used LINE messaging app.
Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward, an area popular with fashion-conscious young people, has given the character his own special residence certificate.
This makes him Japan’s first, and maybe the world’s first, artificial intelligence bot to be granted a place on a real-life local registry.
Mirai, whose name means “future” in Japanese, is supposed to be a first grader at an elementary school.
He can reply to messages and make light-hearted alterations to selfies he is sent.
Shibuya said the project aimed to make the district’s local government more familiar to residents and allow officials to hear their opinions.
“His hobbies are taking pictures and observing people. And he loves talking with people… Please talk to him about anything,” the ward said in a statement with Microsoft, the joint developer of the AI character.
TANGERANG – Police investigating a fire that killed nearly 50 people at a fireworks factory on the outskirts of Jakarta late last month have found multiple safety violations at the plant, which was crammed with three times the number of workers allowed.
One of Indonesia’s worst industrial disasters, the Oct 26 blaze in the congested industrial suburb of Tangerang, has cast a new spotlight on lax safety standards in Indonesia, where rules are often ignored or weakly enforced.
Reuters interviews with police investigators, government officials and survivors show that at the time of the fire, the factory was overcrowded, had only one exit, and a single mid-sized fire extinguisher even though it had reported having four on site.
The building housed more than 4,000 kg of combustible materials in various locations, which, police say, made it all too easy for the fire to rip through the 2,600 square metre factory within minutes, killing 49 workers and injuring dozens more.
Survivors told Reuters they had not had any emergency training or drills, and were not familiar with evacuation routes. Police spokesman Argo Yuwono said there was no indication anyone had tried to use the fire extinguisher.
“It was total panic and the fire was quickly out of control,” Yuwono said. “The workers had zero training in how to respond in an emergency or how to use a fire extinguisher.” Police have detained the owner and operations manager of the company on suspicion of negligence leading to death. They face at least five years in prison if found guilty.
A representative for the parent company of PT Panca Buana Cahaya Sukses said the firm would pay for all survivors’ medical treatment, but declined comment on the legal case.
On the day of the fire, 103 workers had filed into the dusty and stuffy factory. Many lived in small houses nearby that are dotted among the neighbourhood’s factory complexes, and sent their children to school just a block away from the fireworks workshop.
Workers, paid an average of 40,000 rupiah (S$4) a day, fanned out across the factory – to storage facilities for raw materials and finished fireworks, a machine room where the fireworks were produced, and packaging stations. Some milled around in the workers’ canteen near the front of the building.
Police say that soon after the day’s work got underway, at around 9.20 am, sparks from unauthorised welding work landed on tall stacks of unpackaged fireworks, causing at least two explosions that shook neighbouring buildings and could be heard miles away.
Survivors say that within minutes the front area and only exit of the warehouse was engulfed in fire and thick black smoke, trapping the workers and sending them scrambling towards the back of the building.
Police found 44 bodies piled up in a back corner of the building, all charred beyond recognition. Clothes and identifying accessories had melted. Bodies were identified using dental records and DNA samples from families.
Uwang, a 36-year-old woman hired to package fireworks, said she and four others survived by jumping into a small water tank.
“At first, I tried to get out the front gate, but the smoke was already very thick. My friend pulled me into the water tank. I only dared to put my face up to the surface every few seconds to breathe,” she said, lying in a hospital bed with at least half her face, and hands, feet and thighs wrapped in thick, white bandages.
As the flames leapt higher and people screamed for help, a contingent of police officers that happened to be temporarily stationed just across from the factory, started breaking down one of the walls of the warehouse using hammers and iron bars.
More than 30 workers, many severely injured and some with their clothes burned off, managed to scramble out of the hole in the wall, including Uwang.
Others scaled the factory’s walls, jumped to safety or used ladders that residents had propped up against the burning building, witnesses said.
The local fire brigade, winding through narrow streets swarming with bystanders and motorbikes, arrived nearly an hour later and had brought the blaze under control by noon.
CLOSURE THREAT
Authorities suspect that violations are rampant among thousands of factories in the area, and they are threatening to close any don’t meet safety requirements.
“Small- and medium-sized companies are the ones likely to ignore the rules, and they’re the ones that are difficult to regulate,” said Ahmed Zaki Iskandar, the regent of Tangerang, adding that companies making products like paper, fuel, or paint will be targeted first.
He said the company in question had been inspected by safety officials and was issued a permit to employ up to 35 people, but had actually recruited over 100.
“The layout made sense for 35 people … but they broke the rules and they must take responsibility,” Iskandar said, adding that since the fire he had ordered dozens of fireworks “home industries” in the area to be shut down.
Risk analyst Keith Loveard said the crackdown was little more than an “instant solution for a deep-seated problem of industrial safety”.
“The regent’s proposal is positive and much needed, but similar moves have followed disasters in the past, only to see compliance and oversight return to earlier low levels a few months later.”
