Death toll rises to 13 as rescuers search for trapped Indonesian students
Investigators have been looking into the cause of the collapse, but initial signs pointed to substandard construction, experts have said.
Rescue teams move debris from the collapsed building onto trucks in a cordoned-off area at Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in Sidoarjo, East Java Province, on Oct 2, 2025, after a multi-storey building at the school collapsed. (Photo: AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
SIDOARJO, Indonesia: The number of students confirmed dead after the collapse of an Islamic school building in Indonesia rose to 13 late on Friday (Oct 3), the country's disaster mitigation agency said, as the search for survivors continued.
The Al Khoziny school in the town of Sidoarjo in East Java province caved in on Monday, cratering upon hundreds of teenage students during afternoon prayer, its foundations unable to support ongoing construction work on its upper floors.
Thirty ambulances were prepared as rescuers continued looking for 50 students - mostly teenage boys from the ages of 13 to 19 - still trapped under the rubble, the disaster mitigation agency said.
Earlier on Friday, the agency reported nine had died, adding that rescuers had received the parents' permission to make use of heavy equipment after failing to find signs of life during previous efforts.
"Every family of the victims has given their blessing if the heavy equipment gets in there and disturbs the bodies beneath the rubble," said agency chief Suharyanto, adding that there was a possibility that more dead bodies would be found.
Distraught families have been waiting anxiously near the site, hoping to receive any news of their loved ones since the building collapsed on Monday.
On Friday, some argued with rescuers, angrily calling for them to speed up the desperate rescue operation, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.
"You said there was no more sign of life, so we want to bury our family immediately," shouted one person who declined to give his name.
"It's been five days!"
The head of the search and rescue office in the nearby city of Surabaya, Nanang Sigit, told reporters that "in total we found eight bodies" on Friday.
"We have evacuated 116 people, 13 of them were found dead," he said.
Two male students who had been hit by debris were discovered on Friday in the school's ablution area, according to Yudhi Bramantyo, the operations director of the national search and rescue agency.
Nanang said a third victim was found under debris "not far from" the other two, but did not disclose details about the other bodies found on Friday.
Officials had said 59 people were feared missing before the eight bodies were found.
Some families gathered at the site expressed a desire to join the rescue operation because they wished to hold funerals for their loved ones.
In Islamic teachings, burials of the dead must take place as soon as possible.
Families have been able to follow the search and clearing work live on a television screen set up near the site.
The school collapse was so violent that it sent tremors across the neighbourhood, according to residents.
Investigators have been looking into the cause of the collapse, but initial signs pointed to substandard construction, experts have said.
At least one crane was deployed to clear the rubble, with more expected to be called upon to speed up recovery efforts.
The rescue operation was complicated by an earthquake that struck overnight on Tuesday, briefly halting the search.
Al Khoziny is an Islamic boarding school known locally as a pesantren.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, has a total of about 42,000 pesantren serving 7 million students, according to religious affairs ministry data.
