Indonesia: School building collapse kills 1, traps 65

At least one student has died, dozens were injured, and 65 students are feared trapped after the boarding school building collapsed in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia.

Rescue workers, police, and soldiers have been digging through the night, managing to pull out eight weak and injured students more than eight hours after the collapse.

Waiting for news

The 65 were feared buried in the debris after Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school building collapsed. Additional bodies were spotted, suggesting the death toll could rise, AP reported.

Rescue workers, police, and soldiers, who had been digging through the night, pulled out eight weak and injured students more than eight hours after the collapse.

Families of the students anxiously gathered at nearby hospitals and around the collapsed building, waiting for news of their children.

Emotional relatives wailed as rescuers pulled a dusty, injured student from the buried prayer hall.

Oxygen, water

Rescuers rushed oxygen and water to students pinned beneath the unstable concrete of the collapsed structure, fighting against time to pull survivors from the rubble more than 12 hours after the building gave way on Tuesday morning.

At the command post set up within the boarding school complex, a notice board showed 65 students listed as missing as of Tuesday morning.

These were primarily boys from Class 7 to Class 11, aged between twelve and seventeen.

“Oh my God... my son is still buried, oh my God please help!” a mother cried out hysterically after seeing her child’s name on the board.

Her cries were echoed by other parents facing the same distress.

“Please, sir, please find my child immediately,” pleaded a father, holding the hand of one of the rescue team members.

Heavy slabs of concrete, rubble, and unstable parts of the collapsed structure have made search and rescue operations extremely difficult, explained Nanang Sigit, the search and rescue officer leading the effort.