Train collision kills 14, injures dozens near Jakarta

JAKARTA

Workers use a heavy machine to remove the wreckage of a train after a collision in Bekasi, Indonesia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

Indonesia's president ordered an investigation yesterday after a long-distance train smashed into a stationary commuter train overnight, killing 14 people and injuring dozens.

Officials ended a nearly 12-hour rescue effort near Bekasi Timur station, east of the capital Jakarta, which saw crews prying open mangled carriages following the April 27 night collision.

"And this morning it is all finished," Mohammad Syafii, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) told a news conference yesterday. "I am certain there are no more victims to be found."

State-owned rail operator KAI said yesterday morning that the death toll had risen to 14. Another 84 people required medical treatment, it said, without specifying how many remained hospitalized.

According to Franoto Wibowo, a KAI spokesman, a taxi appears to have clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.

President Prabowo Subianto on Tuesday visited hospital patients in Bekasi, offered his condolences to relatives of the deceased, and said he had ordered an "immediate investigation."

He also ordered the construction of an overpass in Bekasi.

"In general, we do see that many railway crossings are not guarded," the president said.

"I have ordered that we immediately repair all these crossings, either by guard posts or by flyovers."

Transport accidents are not uncommon in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation where buses, trains and even planes are often old and poorly maintained.

Sixteen people were killed when a commuter train crashed into a minibus on a level crossing in Jakarta in 2015.