Rescuers ran oxygen, water and food to potential survivors as 91 students remained trapped under the rubble over 48 hours after a school building collapsed in East Java, Indonesia.
Emergency crews continued searching for survivors on Wednesday at the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in the town of Sidoarjo where a dormitory building collapsed while students were gathered for prayers on Tuesday.
The two-storey structure was undergoing an allegedly unauthorised extension to add floors. Police said the old building’s foundation was apparently unable to support two more floors of concrete and collapsed during the pouring process.
At least three students were confirmed dead and over 100 were injured, 26 of whom remained hospitalised with head injuries and broken bones.
“We hope that we can complete this operation soon," Mohammad Syafii, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters. “We are currently racing against time because it’s possible we can still save lives of those we have detected within the golden hours.”
The National Disaster Management Agency revised, late on Tuesday, the number of people presumed trapped under the rubble from previous 38 to 91.
Rescue work is supposed to finish within 24 hours after such a disaster as chances of survival decrease each day after that.
The search had been made difficult by the slabs of concrete and unstable parts of the building, the agency said.
Nearly 300 workers continued to try and reach those who were presumed to be still under the rubble. At least six of the trapped children are thought to be alive.
Emergency officials said they had detected signs of life in parts of the collapsed building and supplied oxygen, food and water to those still in contact with rescue workers. However, they cautioned that some parts contained people who were presumed dead, although a toll was yet to be confirmed.
The search operation was briefly suspended on Tuesday amid warnings that parts of the structure could collapse further.
Footage aired by local TV channels showed desperate families gathered outside the school, anxiously awaiting news about their children.
It also showed rescuers working in compact spaces, drilling through heavy concrete slabs to reach the students.
Al Khoziny is what is known in Indonesia as pesantren, a traditional Islamic boarding school that often operates informally.
The trapped students are mostly teenage boys aged 12 to 18. Female students were playing in another part of the building at the time and managed to escape.
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