Tragedy in Indonesia: Educational Building Collapse Death Toll Increases to 14, Dozens Unaccounted For
The death count from a devastating structural failure at an educational institution in Indonesia escalated to 14 on Friday as rescue teams pulled multiple bodies from under the rubble. Numerous of students are still missing and the death toll is expected to rise.
Search Operations Intensify as Survivor Search Narrows
At first, rescuers conducted manual searches for those trapped alive after the structure collapsed on Monday. However, after no more signs of life found by Thursday, they turned to heavy excavators fitted with jackhammers to speed up the operation.
Emergency workers labored in the blazing heat on Friday to break up and remove massive pieces of debris, with the odor of decomposing bodies a somber reminder of what they would find below.
By the evening, they had recovered nine bodies, raising the official fatality count to 14, with nearly 50 students still unaccounted for.
Specifics of the Structural Failure
The structure collapsed on top of hundreds of people on Monday in a worship area at the century-old Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo in East Java, about 780km (480 miles) east of Jakarta.
The chief of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, Suharyanto, informed the media at the scene on Friday that the retrieval operation were expected to be complete by the end of Saturday.
The students were primarily boys in classes seven to 12, aged from 12 and 19 years old. Girls were praying in a different section of the building and managed to escape, eyewitnesses said.
Eyewitness Testimony: Escape from the Rubble
Thirteen-year-old Rizalul Qoib, one of 104 those who escaped, came back to the site on Friday to see what was left of his school, and said he was lucky to have gotten out with only a small cut to his head.
He said, similar to his peers, he had been praying when he heard something like the noise of falling rocks, which got increasingly intense.
“I ceased my prayers and ran when I felt the floor shaking,” he remembered. “All at once the building gave way, the wreckage of the roof landed on my head, my face.”
Then the room went dark, but he heard someone yelling, “this way, follow me” and he followed the voice until he finally found a narrow gap in the rubble.
“I just followed the light,” Qoib said.
A significant number of the other individuals who were hurt but got out or were saved experienced serious head trauma and fractures, and are continuing to receive care in the hospital.
Reason of the Collapse
Officials have stated the building was two floors, but two more levels were being added lacking authorization. Police said the existing structure's foundation seemingly was could not bear the additional weight and failed during the pouring process.
Administrative staff have so far declined to speak.