A fire in an office building in Indonesia's capital kills at least 22 people

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A fire ripped through an office building in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, on Tuesday, killing at least 22 people, including a pregnant woman, police said.

Flames engulfed the seven-story building, sending thick black smoke billowing into the sky and causing panic among nearby residents and workers in a neighborhood in Central Jakarta.

The fire, which broke out around midday, is believed to have started on the first floor of the building in the Kemayoran neighborhood before spreading to other floors, Central Jakarta police chief Susatyo Purnomo Condro said.

Hundreds of personnel and 29 fire trucks were deployed to try to contain the blaze. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Many workers in the building, which was used as a sales and storage office for a drone company, were out for lunch when a battery started sparking in a storage and testing area, said Condro, citing several witnesses.

The fire was extinguished after three hours of intense effort. At least 22 bodies — seven men and 15 women, including a pregnant woman — were recovered from the building and taken to the police hospital in East Jakarta for identification.

“It is suspected that a short circuit or thermal failure in the drone battery triggered an explosion and fire,” a survivor named Dimitri, who like many Indonesians uses a single name, told local television.

“Some colleagues on the upper floors tried to escape by moving to the rooftop while calling for help,” he added.

Television reports showed the tense evacuation of more than a dozen trapped workers, including many women, from the sixth floor using an emergency ladder extended by firefighters. Each person had to be lowered one-by-one from the building, and several struggled to breathe due to the thick smoke while waiting for their turn.

Families anxiously awaited news at hospitals or near the building rented by PT Terra Drone Indonesia, a company that provides unmanned aerial vehicle technology for various industrial sectors such as construction, mining, oil and gas, energy, plantations and urban planning.

Rescuers tend to an injured police officer at the site of a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Rescuers carry out the body of a victim from the site of a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Rescuers carry out the body of a victim from the site of a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Rescuers carry out the body of a victim from the site of a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Rescuers carry out the body of a victim from the site of a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania’s government on Tuesday declared a national emergency over security risks posed by meteorological balloons from Russia-allied Belarus that have violated its airspace in recent weeks.

Tensions between Lithuania and Belarus have escalated after the balloons forced Lithuania to repeatedly shut down its main airport, leaving thousands of people stranded.

“In combating the Belarusian hybrid attack, we must take the strictest measures and defend the areas most affected by this attack," Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said.

The announcement followed a Cabinet meeting of the Baltic state, which is a NATO member and strong backer of Ukraine in its fight against the Russian forces who launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovič said that the state of emergency means the army would be given the possibility to patrol in the border area, together with police and other uniformed services or alone, in order to detect the balloons.

He promised the impact on civilians would be limited.

While the balloons are used to smuggle cigarettes into Lithuania, officials in Vilnius see their numbers and trajectories as deliberate acts of disruption orchestrated by Belarus.

Kondratovič said Lithuanian prosecutors launched an investigation into the balloons and that the secret services would provide information about the connection with the Minsk regime.

“I have no information that the Belarusian side is trying to curb the senders of the balloons," the minister said. "And this is one of the proofs that this is a hybrid attack.”

In October, Lithuanian authorities closed two border crossings in response to the airspace violations by the balloons.

Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko denounced Lithuania’s move to close the border as a “mad scam” and part of a “hybrid war” against his country. He suggested that Vilnius itself needs to combat smuggling of contraband.

Lithuania, Poland and other European Union countries in the region have in recent years accused Belarus of other activity aimed at triggering instability, including with cyberattacks. They also accuse Minsk of directing a large influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to their borders to create a migration crisis.

“Belarus is signalling to Lithuania that it can raise the price at any moment," Linas Kojala, head of the Geopolitics and Security Studies Center in Vilnius, told The Associated Press. “Yesterday with weaponized migration, today with balloons that are hardly separable from regime control.”

Europe overall has been on high alert since drone intrusions into NATO’s airspace reached an unprecedented scale in September and the Russian invasion of Ukraine nears its fourth year. However, smuggling balloons are a challenge unique to the Baltic states bordering Belarus.

Representatives of the EU and NATO have expressed support but offered scarce concrete information about what could be done.

“We will sooner or later have to find ways to neutralize these balloons," Kondratovič, the interior minister, said. “According to our data, no country has a solution for shooting down a balloon at an altitude of 10 kilometers (6 miles) using a drone or other kinetic tool,” he told Lithuania's public broadcaster, LRT.

According to the Lithuanian government, since October, the Vilnius international airport has been closed for more than 60 hours due to the threat posed to civil aviation by the balloons, affecting over 350 flights and approximately 51,000 passengers.

FILE - In this undated photo released by the State Border Guard Service, an officer inspects a balloon used to carry cigarettes into Lithuania, because Belarussian smugglers often use them to ferry the contraband into the European Union (State Border Guard Service via AP, File)