The death toll from the collapse of a school building in Indonesia rose to 45 on Sunday as rescue teams recovered more bodies from the debris.
Part of the multi-storey Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, suddenly collapsed on Monday while students were gathered for afternoon prayers.
National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) operations director, Yudhi Bramantyo, said rescuers recovered 19 more victims on Sunday. “According to our calculations, we have evacuated 149 victims in total — 45 dead and 104 survivors,” he told reporters. This updated figure was up from 37 earlier in the day and included several body parts.
Nanang Sigit, head of the local search and rescue agency, confirmed the same casualty numbers. Before the latest discoveries, Yudhi had reported that at least 26 people remained missing. He added that teams continued to work tirelessly through the rubble and might extend the operation until every victim is recovered, with hopes of clearing the site by Tuesday.
Budi Irawan, an official from the national disaster agency, said the recovery effort was about “60 per cent” complete. “We hope that by tomorrow the area will be fully cleared, allowing us to determine the final number of victims,” he explained during a live press briefing.
Investigators are still examining the cause of the tragedy, but early evidence suggests poor construction standards were to blame. Officials noted that the operation was complicated because vibrations in one part of the site could destabilise other areas. Families of the missing victims consented to the use of heavy machinery on Thursday, after the 72-hour “golden window” for finding survivors had passed.
Concerns about building safety remain widespread in Indonesia. Just last month, a building hosting a prayer gathering collapsed in West Java, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more.