JAKARTA: Rescuers in Indonesia are racing against time to find 91 missing students and staff feared trapped under the rubble of a collapsed Islamic boarding school in East Java. The building caved in during afternoon prayers on Monday, killing at least three people and injuring dozens, officials said. Families have gathered at the site in Sidoarjo as search teams work around the clock, detecting signs of life beneath the debris.
Authorities said 91 people were listed as missing after the Al Khoziny school building collapsed while pupils held late afternoon prayers in a mosque housed on a lower floor, as upper floors remained under construction. The school is in the East Java town of Sidoarjo, about 780 km (480 miles) east of Jakarta.
By late Tuesday, three bodies had been recovered, with those missing feared trapped under huge slabs of concrete. Ninety-nine children and workers at the school were accounted for.
Signs of Life Under the Rubble
The head of the local rescue agency, Nanang Sigit, told reporters that rescuers had detected signs of life beneath the debris.
“We used a camera and were able to detect six victims who showed signs of life,” he said. “When they saw the light from the search camera, they were moving their legs.”
Holy Abdullah Arif, 49, wept as he held up a picture on his phone of his nephew Rosi, still listed among the missing. He described his frantic search for the boy in the ruins.
“I ran around screaming, ‘Rosi! Rosi! If you can hear me and can move, get out!’ And then a child was screaming back from the rubble, he was stuck. I thought that was Rosi, so I asked, ‘Are you Rosi?’ and the child said, ‘God, no, help me!’”
Families Wait in Agony
Families clustered around a whiteboard with a list of known survivors, searching for names of their children.
An excavator and crane were deployed to help shift rubble, but Nanang Sigit said authorities would not use heavy machinery for fear of further collapse.
“The rescuers are still searching for 91 people,” said Abdul Muhari, a spokesperson for the disaster mitigation agency (BNBP), adding that 26 of the injured were still being treated at local hospitals.
The National Disaster and Mitigation Agency said student attendance records indicated 91 people were likely buried under building materials. “The main structure has totally collapsed,” said Emi Freezer, the National Search and Rescue Agency’s head of operations. “We prioritized saving victims who were still responsive.”
Dozens of parents waited on Wednesday near the collapsed school building as rescue teams focused on seven areas where signs of life had been detected.
