At least three students have died, and dozens are missing after a boarding school building collapsed in Indonesia.
According to Al Jazeera, Islamic boarding school building in East Java province collapsed on Monday, September 29, during the afternoon prayers.
National Search and Rescue Agency head Mohammad Syafii on Tuesday said that the total number of victims was 102, with 99 survivors and three deaths.
As per the National Agency for Disaster Management, rescuers are searching for 38 people who are believed to be trapped in the rubble.
The agency further added that 77 victims were taken to the hospital, eleven people were rescued and 91 others luckily managed to escape.
The disaster management agency stated, “Efforts to assess the site, monitor the remaining building structure, and prepare evacuation routes for victims are the primary focus of the teams on the ground. The public and managers of multistorey buildings are urged to ensure technical supervision during construction to prevent similar occurrences in the future.”
Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, a separate body, had earlier reported that “provisional data” indicated that 100 students were caught up in the collapse, of whom all but one had been located alive.
Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School, in Sidoarjo, East Java, collapsed at about 3pm. Authorities say the school’s foundation pillars gave way as crews were concreting the fourth floor of the building, trapping dozens of people under debris.
