Jakarta, Oct 25: Three people including a child died when a homemade bomb stored in the ceiling of their home exploded as they slept in Eastern Indonesia's Halmahera Island early today, police said. Four other people were wounded, a hospital official said. "It's true there was a bomb explosion at about 1:30 last night (2100 IST)," said inspector Irwan Nasution, chief of police in Tobelo town. The blast left a two-year-old child critically wounded and a woman was also hurt, Rose Rayray, an administrator at Bethesda hospital, told a news agency. A husband and wife who lived next door were slightly injured, she said. Tobelo and other parts of Halmahera, in north Maluku province, saw deadly Muslim-Christian violence early this decade.
Nasution said the "homemade explosives" stored in the ceiling may have been detonated unintentionally by heat or electricity.
"It was stored there for a long time unknown to the householder," he said.
Hamid, a nurse at Tobelo general hospital, identified the dead as Hadi Purnomo, seven, his father Kasuti and another family member named Sumardi, who was aged about 30. Police gave Purnomo's age as five.

Bureau Report