Indonesia: Dozens Trapped Under Rubble of Quranic School
Rescue efforts continue in the city of Sidoarjo on the Indonesian island of Java after a multi-story Quranic boarding school collapsed while students were at prayer, in a tragic incident believed to have trapped 91 people under the rubble, according to preliminary official estimates.
Abdul Mahari, spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Agency, stated that the death toll is expected to rise due to the difficulty in determining the exact number of missing individuals. He added that estimates are based on data from registered students at the school.
The previous tally indicated three dead and 38 missing before authorities announced on Wednesday that they are still verifying the final number of those trapped.
Emi Frizier, the operations manager at the National Search and Rescue Agency, explained that intervention teams are focusing on seven areas where signs of life have been detected, emphasizing that the current priority is to provide life-saving support to those trapped.
Outside the collapsed building, dozens of concerned family members stood by anxiously as rescue teams raced against time to retrieve potential survivors from beneath the debris.
