At least one student died, dozens were injured and 65 others were feared trapped as a school building collapses in Indonesia. Soon after receiving information, the rescue team rushed to the spot and ran oxygen and water to students trapped in the unstable concrete rubble of a collapsed school building.
Rescue operation underway at the spot
Rescue workers, police and soldiers digging through the night pulled out eight weak and injured survivors more than eight hours after the collapse at Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in the East Java town of Sidoarjo. Rescuers saw additional bodies, indicating the death toll was likely to rise.
Families of the students gathered at hospitals or near the collapsed building, anxiously awaiting news of their children. Relatives wailed as they watched rescuers pull a dusty, injured student from the buried prayer hall.
65 students missing as of Tuesday
A notice board at the command post set up in the boarding school complex listed 65 students as missing as of Tuesday morning. They are mostly boys in grades seven to 11, between the ages of 12 and 17.
Heavy slabs of concrete and other rubble and unstable parts of the building hampered search and rescue efforts, said Nanang Sigit, a search and rescue officer who lead the effort. Heavy equipment was available but not being used due to concerns that it could cause further collapse.
Several hundred rescuers were involved in the effort and had equipment for breathing, extrication, medical evacuation and other support tools.
Here’s what happened?
The students had been performing afternoon prayers in a building that was undergoing an unauthorised expansion when it suddenly collapsed on top of them, provincial police spokesperson Jules Abraham Abast said.
Residents, teachers and administrators assisted injured students, many with head injuries and broken bones. Female students were praying in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.
One male student, a 13-year-old boy, was killed and 99 other students were injured and taken to hospitals, some of them in critical condition, officials said.
Authorities were investigating the cause of the collapse. Abast said the old prayer hall was two stories but two more were being added without a permit.
With inputs from AP
