Tragedy in Southeast Asia: Educational Building Collapse Fatalities Rises to 14, Dozens Unaccounted For

The death count from a catastrophic structural failure at an educational institution in Indonesia climbed to 14 on Friday as rescue teams retrieved several victims from beneath the debris. Dozens of students are still missing and the death toll is anticipated to rise.

Search Operations Ramp Up as Hope Fades

Initially, emergency personnel conducted manual searches for survivors after the structure caved in on Monday. However, after no more signs of life found by Thursday, they turned to heavy excavators equipped with jackhammers to speed up the operation.

Emergency workers labored in the hot sun on Friday to break up and clear large slabs of concrete, with the smell of the deceased a somber indication of what they would find below.

By the evening, they had found nine bodies, bringing the official fatality count to 14, with nearly 50 students still unaccounted for.

Details of the Structural Failure

The building 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) to the east of Jakarta.

The head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, Suharyanto, informed reporters at the site on Friday that the recovery efforts were expected to be finished by the end of Saturday.

The students were primarily boys in classes seven to 12, aged from 12 and 19 years of age. Female students were praying in another part of the building and were able to get out safely, survivors said.

Eyewitness Testimony: Escape from the Rubble

Thirteen-year-old Rizalul Qoib, one of 104 survivors, returned to the site on Friday to see what was remaining 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 sound of crumbling material, which got increasingly intense.

“I stopped praying and ran when I felt the floor shaking,” he remembered. “All at once the building collapsed, the debris of the roof landed on my head, my face.”

Then the room became pitch black, but he heard someone shouting, “over here, follow me” and he followed the sound until he eventually found a narrow gap in the rubble.

“I just followed the light,” Qoib said.

Many of the other individuals who were hurt but escaped or were rescued suffered serious head trauma and broken bones, and are still being treated in the medical facility.

Cause of the Collapse

Officials have said the building was two floors, but two more levels were under construction without a permit. Law enforcement said the existing structure's base apparently was could not bear the additional weight and collapsed during the concrete work.

Administrative staff have not yet commented.