Scores injured as Indonesia stock exchange building lobby floor collapses

A mezzanine floor overlooking the main lobby of the Indonesian Stock Exchange building collapsed on Monday, injuring scores of people, many of them students, under slabs of concrete and other debris.

The high-rise building, constructed in the late 1990s, is part of a two-tower complex in the heart of the financial district and houses dozens of other offices including the World Bank. It was the target of a car bombing by Isis militants in September 2000.

Police ruled out a bomb as a cause of Monday’s collapse. They said more than 70 people had been injured, but no deaths had been reported.

Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan visited the site and said the city will “audit the building”, which was last inspected by authorities in May.

Workers and security examine the damage after a mezzanine floor collapsed at the Indonesia Stock Exchange building in Jakarta. (Reuters)

“I have conveyed to the building’s management that the audit of the construction should start tonight so that the activities of the stock exchange are not disturbed,” Baswedan told reporters.

Safety standards are often loosely enforced in Indonesia. Last year, a fire that ripped through a fireworks factory on the outskirts of Jakarta killed around 50 people in one of the country’s worst industrial accidents. A police investigation found multiple safety violations.

Many of the injured were university students who were on the mezzanine floor when it collapsed.