Learning From The Collapse Of Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School, Building Education Facilities Must Provide A Sense Of Security

JAKARTA Heavy equipment was finally lowered to carry out the evacuation process for victims of the collapse of the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School building in Sidoarjo Regency, East Java, after passing through the golden time phase. This was done because there were no signs of life after 72 hours since the incident.

Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School collapsed on Monday (29/9/2025) at around 15:00 WIB. The collapsed boarding school building is still under renovation.

At the time of the incident, the students were carrying out the congregational prayers on the second floor which functioned as prayer rooms. According to the caretaker of the pesantren, KH Abdul Salam Mujib, the collapsed building is still in the renovation stage.

The renovation process for the men's santri dormitory has been going on for almost nine months. The plan is for this building to have three floors with a roof in the form of a cement cor, not a roof. From morning to 12 noon on that day, the roof of the collapsed third floor had just been cast. Before finally collapsing and hitting the students, the building was known to have swayed.

"As far as I know, the last casting was carried out this morning until noon," said Mujib.

Three hours later, the newly cast roof suddenly collapsed and hit hundreds of students who were praying on the second floor. Those in the prayer room are trapped behind the rubble.

As of Friday (3/10), when heavy equipment was deployed, Basarnas reported that nine victims had died, while 103 survivors so far.

Minister of Religion Nasaruddin Umar called this incident a disaster, and he emphasized that he would take action to minimize the potential for a similar incident to occur again. Meanwhile, KH Abdul Salam Mujid said the incident was God's destiny.

What happened to Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in Sidoarjo was a heartbreaking event. Moreover, the majority of victims are students who are studying.

Until now, the main cause of the collapse of the boarding school building is still a question mark. The public urged an investigation to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

Although there is no definite conclusion, there is an allegation that this is due to the poor quality of the building so that it fails to guarantee public safety. Not to mention the possibility of the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School building without obtaining a building permit (IMB) aka standing without official documents. Although it needs to be underlined, the existence of an IMB does not then guarantee a safe building.

A temporary analysis of the joint SAR Team and construction experts from the Sepuluh November Institute of Technology (ITS) Surabaya said the third-floor building, including the collapsed prayer room at the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School, was due to a total colllapse of construction failure.

ITS Civil Technical Department Building Structure Expert Muji Hermawan said the type of collapse that occurred was apancake collapse, namely the condition of the floors of the buildings to collapse vertically and overlap with each other. This pattern causes the creation of narrow gaps making it difficult for the evacuation process.

Meanwhile, a Structure Researcher from the Technical University of Valencia, Spain, Andri Setiawan explained the various common possibilities that cause cases like this to occur.

The first possibility, said Andri, is that there is a failure of the foundation system due to overloading conditions. This could happen because the pesantren building was originally designed for only one or two floors. However, there was then an addition of floors without a review of the building's initial design.

While another possibility is the failure of the support system (shoring system) which functions to withstand the weight of liquid concrete during the casting process. Andri said the excessive load could result in the support system breaking at one of the critical points, which then caused another support failure in the vicinity.

Head of the Disaster Data, Information and Communication Center of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Abdul Muhari reminded that this incident was a disaster due to technological failures that needed to be anticipated through the implementation of strict construction safety standards.

East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa also urged a thorough evaluation of efforts to build a safe space for all students, including students who study at Islamic boarding schools.

The incident that happened to Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School was an alarm about the importance of paying attention to building eligibility standards that prioritize child safety. Designing a safe building, especially education facilities, does not only have a positive impact on the function of buildings, but also saves children.

For this reason, Commissioner of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) Aris Adi Leksono encourages all parties with their respective powers and responsibilities to focus on handling, especially the evaluation of victims.

According to Aris, pesantren must cooperate with local governments and other related parties for handling, ranging from assistance to recovery. Because in accordance with the Child Protection Act, handling child cases must be fast, ranging from treatment, psychosocial assistance, to comprehensive recovery.

"Regulations have been clearly regulated regarding the feasibility of children's buildings and safety. So the notes lie in the implementation and compliance that still need to be optimized, including maximizing supervision," said Aris.

He also expressed his hope that in the future, education compensation, not only pesantren, paying attention to building eligibility standards that prioritize child safety, and conducting regular feasibility, monitoring and evaluation tests.