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Indonesian mayor says blaze toll is 10

BOGOR, (Indonesia): Edi Gunardi, the mayor of the quiet Indonesian hill town of Bogor, said on Tuesday just 10 people died in a major blaze that gutted a shopping centre.

"This figure is based on what I've seen while visiting the site, the list of Ramayana employees present on the day the fire broke out and examinations by forensic doctors, the police and the military commandant of Bogor," Gunardi said.

He called a news conference to announce the final death toll after considerable controversy surrounded the number of people who died in the March 28 fire that began in the Ramayana department store during annual stock taking.

Police said shortly after the fire that 78 people had been killed and they had some 70 bags of what they believed to be human remains. Last week they said the bags did not contain human remains and put the toll at 10.

The management of the department store, on the top floor of a three-storey centre that also housed hundreds of small shops and stalls, said the bags probably contained the remains of mannequins in the store when the fire erupted.

It said only 10 of its employees were unaccounted for and then Gunardi announced the toll was that figure.

There have been at least two small protests by students and other young people in Bogor who say they do not believe that only 10 people died.

But Gunardi was adamant on Tuesday that the figure was correct.

"I hope I have cleared the confusion about the death-toll," he said before communal prayers for the dead.-Reuter