Rescue operations have officially ended at Indonesia’s Bantargebang Integrated Waste Treatment Facility after a massive garbage avalanche killed seven people Sunday, marking a grim conclusion to a two-day search effort at the country’s largest landfill.
The deadly collapse struck Sunday morning at the sprawling dump site in Bekasi, just outside Jakarta, when heavy overnight rain triggered a catastrophic slippage of trash and debris. The avalanche buried workers who had been laboring at the facility or resting nearby when tons of waste came cascading down without warning, engulfing several garbage trucks and small food stalls in its path.
Desiana Kartika Bahari, head of Jakarta’s Search and Rescue Office, confirmed the search operation concluded Tuesday after finding the last of seven victims buried in the landfill. The casualties were truck drivers and food stall owners who had been working at the site. Six people survived the incident.
“We received information from police that two among those missing were safe and had returned to their homes,” Bahari told reporters Tuesday.
More than 200 rescuers worked around the clock using excavators and thermal drones to locate victims during the intensive search operation. Photos and videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed teams combing through massive heaps of trash, while heavy machinery carefully dug through mountains of waste in the desperate search for survivors.
The Bantargebang facility was established in 1989 and ranks as Indonesia’s largest waste disposal site. Sprawling across 110 hectares, the landfill receives between 6,500 and 7,000 tons of garbage daily from Greater Jakarta and has accumulated approximately 55 million tonnes of trash over its decades of operation. The facility has long been a focal point of environmental reform efforts by Indonesian authorities, who have struggled to manage the overwhelming volume of waste generated by the capital’s sprawling metropolitan area of 32 million people.
This was not the first deadly incident at the site. Previous landslides have claimed lives over the facility’s history, including a 2006 collapse that killed three scavengers. In January 2026, another landslide at the site dragged three garbage trucks into a riverbed, foreshadowing Sunday’s larger tragedy.
Thousands of residents from surrounding communities work as informal waste pickers at Bantargebang, sorting through garbage to find recyclable materials they can sell for modest income. An estimated 3,000 waste workers live and labor at the site daily, contributing nearly 10 percent of the recycling rate for non-organic waste at the facility. The dangerous conditions these workers face came into stark relief with Sunday’s disaster.
The facility has faced repeated warnings about capacity, with the site previously described as “overwhelmed” by the sheer amount of trash it receives. Late last year, the government announced a two-year deadline to clear Bantargebang through an accelerated waste-to-energy project aimed at reducing chronic over-reliance on open dumping.
The fatal collapse has renewed scrutiny of Bantargebang and similar facilities across Indonesia. Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq visited the disaster site Sunday evening and placed responsibility squarely on local authorities.
“Bantargebang belongs to the Jakarta administration, so they have to take responsibility,” Hanif told broadcaster Kompas TV. “This incident must truly serve as a bitter lesson for us so that Jakarta can promptly make improvements.”
His comments reflected growing pressure on Indonesian officials to address longstanding waste management problems that have plagued the country’s urban areas. President Prabowo Subianto warned last month that most of Indonesia’s landfills, which are being gradually phased out, would exceed their capacity by 2028.
Environmental watchdog Walhi noted that Sunday’s disaster marked at least the fifth trash avalanche in Greater Jakarta over the past six months, underscoring the region’s critical capacity problems at disposal sites. The organization urged the city to focus on reducing waste at the source and enforcing extended producer responsibility policies.
The disaster highlights the precarious working conditions faced by thousands of waste workers across Southeast Asia, where informal waste picking remains a primary source of income for many families living in poverty. These workers routinely navigate hazardous terrain, climbing unstable mountains of trash without safety equipment or proper training.
Heavy rainfall has become increasingly problematic for landfill sites across the region, where inadequate drainage systems and poor structural planning create conditions ripe for catastrophic failures. The overnight rain that triggered Sunday’s avalanche saturated the massive piles of waste, causing them to lose structural integrity and collapse.
Indonesia has grappled with waste management challenges for decades, as rapid urbanization and population growth have outpaced infrastructure development. Jakarta alone produces thousands of tons of garbage daily, much of it ending up at facilities like Bantargebang, which was originally built on former rice paddy fields chosen for low-cost land acquisition rather than long-term suitability.
The incident bears grim similarities to other recent landfill disasters across Asia. In January, a garbage avalanche at the Binaliw landfill in Cebu City, Philippines killed 36 people—mostly sanitation workers—and became one of the deadliest industrial disasters in that city’s history.
Environmental advocates have long warned that Indonesia’s largest landfills operate beyond safe capacity, creating ticking time bombs that endanger both workers and nearby communities. The latest tragedy has amplified those warnings, with calls mounting for comprehensive reforms to the country’s waste management system.
As rescue operations concluded Tuesday, attention shifted to what steps authorities will take to prevent future disasters. The seven victims leave behind families now demanding answers about safety protocols and accountability at the facility.
Indonesian officials face mounting pressure to transform their approach to waste management, moving beyond simply piling trash in ever-growing mountains to implementing sustainable solutions that protect both workers and the environment. The government has announced plans to construct 10 waste-to-energy incinerators nationwide as part of a broader target to operationalize 33 such plants by 2029—but whether these efforts come quickly enough to prevent the next disaster is uncertain.
