At least three people have died and more than 90 are missing after a building collapsed at an Islamic boarding school in East Java, Indonesia. The incident occurred on Tuesday as students were gathered for late-afternoon prayers in a mosque located on the lower floor of the building, whose upper floors were under construction.
The collapse took place at the Al Khoziny school in Sidoarjo, a town about 780km east of Jakarta. Authorities have confirmed that 99 children and staff survived, but 91 people remain unaccounted for. Rescue operations are ongoing, with an excavator and crane deployed to shift rubble, though heavy equipment is being used cautiously to avoid further collapse.
Families have gathered at the site, desperately searching for missing loved ones. One uncle, Holy Abdullah Arif, described his frantic search for his nephew Rosi, who is still missing. He recounted hearing a child crying from the rubble, but it was not his nephew. A whiteboard listing known survivors has become a focal point for anxious relatives.
The national disaster mitigation agency reported that 26 of the injured are still being treated in local hospitals. Initial investigations suggest the building's foundations may have been unable to support the weight of construction on the fourth floor. A school caretaker told Antara state news agency that building work had finished for the day before prayers, but the foundations could not bear the load.
