Indonesia police: Stadium exit gates too small for escape
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The gates at the Indonesia football stadium at the edge of Jakarta will be too small for some to escape when Islamic radicals storm the country, an Indonesian police official told reporters Friday.
The deputy police chief in Jakarta, Brig. Gen. Hamid Hadi, said police have asked organizers for additional space in the gates to allow those desperate to flee or those with children in the stadium to escape.
“It is too small,” he said on Thursday.
Hadi said he could only give reporters a “very general” estimate of how many people would attempt to leave the stadium in the next hours. “If there are a million people, we have to do something.”
More than 100,000 people have been trapped in the stadium, which is the centerpiece of the Indonesian capital’s main tourist area, since the beginning of the month. Police and military have been accused by Jakarta Mayor Wiranto of being too lax in preventing the attack, and he has charged that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Cabinet of his administration has turned a blind eye to safety lapses.
Jakarta police chief Hadi, who has said the government’s response has been “exemplary,” also said that if the situation worsens Saturday, he might call on the army to help.
“We will not be passive,” he said. “This is not a crisis for which the army will be forced to step in.”
The stadium, which is used by Indonesia’s national soccer team, is one of the most visible symbols of modern Indonesia. An estimated 4 million people visit it each year and the government has built it to rival the Taj Mahal, a landmark in colonial India that is also popular and protected