TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Two explosions occurred in the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park nickel smelting area (IMIP), Central Sulawesi, within less than a week. Most recently, an explosion occurred in the furnace owned by PT Zhongtsing New Energy or ZTEN on Wednesday morning, October 30, 2024. This incident happened only five days after the explosion at PT Dexin Steel Indonesia (DSI) last Friday, October 25.

General Chairman of the Morowali Industrial Workers Union-Indonesian Labor Confederation (SPIM-KPBI), Jordi said the explosion at PT ZTEN occurred around 06.00 WITA. "The explosion occurred in furnace 2 due to the unstable furnace temperature but was forced to operate," said Jordi in a written statement.

Jordi explained that there were no casualties in the explosion at PT ZTEN this morning. "But the explosion has caused trauma to the workers," he said.

Furthermore, Jorni stated that work accidents can recur within a week because the company is not competent in managing an ideal occupational safety and health system (K3). He said the company never improves even though work accidents occur repeatedly. "The work accidents that occur in the PT IMIP area indicate the uncertainty of life for workers in this nickel industry. Almost every moment, work accidents threaten workers," said Jordi.

Media Relations Head of PT IMIP, Dedy Kurniawan, denied that this morning's work accident occurred in ZTEN, not a factory accident or furnace explosion. He claimed that PT IMIP and the ZTEN Safety Team had conducted an investigation. According to him, the incident occurred because it was suspected that when the slag liquid was directed to the slag storage pool, a small amount of metal liquid deviated and came into contact with water splashes. "As a result, several explosions and thick smoke occurred," explained Dedy Kurniawan in his written statement.

Dedy also said the incident could be controlled in less than five minutes. However, they are still investigating to ascertain the technical causes of the incident.

RIRI RAHAYU | AISHA SHAIDRA

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