Indonesian school collapse toll at 36, rescue continues

The country’s disaster reduction agency says death rose to 36 after the collapse of an Islamic boarding school building in Indonesia.

During the seventh day, the agency continued to search for the bodies of 27 students – mostly young men aged 13 to 19 years – stuck under the rubble.

According to the agency, the cranes excavation and search and evacuation efforts were completed by 60 percent, which expects to clean all the rashes and finish searching on Monday.

The school of Khoziny in the town of Sidoarjo in East Java was caved last Monday, and in the afternoon, hundreds of young students collapsed on their prayers and could not support the ongoing construction works on their upper floors.

On Friday, the savior received the permission of the parents to use heavy equipment after they could not find symptoms of life during previous efforts.

The rescuers dug them from the tunnels in the ruins of the building, called men’s names, and used sensors to detect any movement, but they could not find signs of life.

Al Khoziny is an Islamic boarding school known as Pesantren locally.

According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority country, has about 42,000 pesantrens serving seven million students.