Indonesian authorities have concluded the search for victims trapped beneath the debris of a collapsed Islamic boarding school in East Java after recovering over 60 bodies, according to disaster officials. The town of Sidoarjo was filled with sorrow and uncertainty following the collapse of the Al Khoziny school, where a structural failure led to the collapse during afternoon prayers, affecting hundreds of individuals, predominantly teenage boys, most of whom managed to escape.
All 61 individuals inside the structure have been accounted for, along with seven body parts that are currently undergoing identification by the police, as reported by the disaster mitigation agency. The search operations have been officially terminated due to the building’s unstable condition, announced Mohammad Syafii, the head of the search and rescue agency.
Budi Irawan, the deputy chief of the agency, mentioned that severed limbs are among the body parts being examined for identification. Rescuers utilized excavators and cranes to remove large pieces of concrete and conducted thorough searches in tunnels while calling out the names of potential survivors.
The Al Khoziny school is part of Indonesia’s network of pesantren schools, numbering over 42,000 across the country, with only 50 possessing proper building permits, according to the public works ministry. The school’s permit status remains unclear, with reports indicating a lack of proper authorization, as stated by Sidoarjo chief Subandi.
Image source: Dipta Wahyu/Reuters