One Santri Dies, 38 Still Wanted After Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School Sidoarjo Ambruk

JAKARTA - The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) announced that one student died due to the collapse of the Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School (Ponpes) building in Buduran, Sidoarjo Regency, East Java, on Monday 29 September.

"One person died," said Head of BNPB Disaster Communications Division Dodi Yuleova, quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, September 30.

BNPB confirmed that the latest report from Basarnas also noted that a total of 102 people had been evacuated. Of these, 91 people evacuated independently and 11 people were evacuated by the SAR team and 101 people survived.

The evacuation process continues to be carried out by a joint team involving Basarnas, the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), firefighters, the TNI, Polri, volunteers, and the local community.

According to Dodi, 38 people were still reported in the search until this report was received.

"In the search for 38 people," he said explaining the report received from the Head of the Surabaya SAR Office.

Deputy for Operations and Preparedness of Basarnas Edy Prakoso previously revealed that the search operation was focused on the ruins of the prayer room where a number of students were reported to have been hit by a building while carrying out congregational prayers.

The Surabaya SAR Office in East Java received reports of an incident that occurred Monday (29/9) afternoon at around 15:35 WIB while the casting of the building was ongoing since morning.

It is suspected that the foundation was not strong enough that the graded building collapsed to the ground floor.

The SAR team faces challenges because the condition of the ruins of the building is quite dense and the terrain is narrow so that extriction equipment is used to accelerate the opening of access to the victim's location.

Basarnas is trying its best to help students trapped in collapsed buildings by deploying the best-capable SAR personnel, including the Basarnas Special Group (BSG) team from Jakarta and rescue teams from several nearby SAR Offices.