At least one dead and 38 missing after boarding school collapse in Indonesia

Jakarta.- Indonesian rescue teams are searching on Tuesday for 38 people who remain missing after the collapse on Monday of an Islamic boarding school on the island of Java, which has left at least one dead, emergency teams report. In its latest update, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) indicated that so far there is at least one fatality, while 101 people have been rescued and 38 remain missing.

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Of those rescued, 77 were transferred to hospitals in the area with injuries of varying severity. Indonesian authorities have not yet specified the ages of those affected. Amid large concrete blocks and other debris, teams are trying to access the areas where students who were praying on the first floor of the building when it collapsed are believed to be. “Rescue teams are trying to create access routes to evacuate the victims (…) The problem is that the building’s situation is very unstable and there is a lot of material to remove,” rescuer Tholib Vatelahan told EFE from the area. The collapse occurred at 3:35 p.m. local time (8:35 GMT) on Monday, when students were praying at the Al-Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo Regency, East Java province. Rescuers have an excavator in case it is necessary to move the heaviest debris, according to images from the scene. Meanwhile, relatives of the victims approached the scene of the incident, where the authorities have published provisional lists with the names of the survivors. Authorities maintain that the incident occurred while works were being carried out on the fourth floor. A group of workers were pouring cement when the building collapsed, points out the BASARNAS statement. “It is suspected that the foundations were not strong enough and that the building collapsed from the fourth floor to the ground floor,” they pointed out on Monday.