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View all search resultsDeath toll from East Java school collapse rises to 54
Piles of concrete caved in on hundreds of mostly teenage boys after the collapse of the Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, in East Java province, trapping and later killing them.
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A truck carries debris from the collapsed Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, on October 5, 2025, as rescuers continue searching for victims after a multi-storey building at the school collapsed. (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
T
he death toll from the collapse of a school in East Java last week has climbed to at least 54 people as rescuers have cleared nearly all of the debris, rescue authorities said on Monday, in the country's deadliest disaster this year.
Piles of concrete caved in on hundreds of mostly teenage boys after the collapse of the Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, in East Java province, trapping and later killing them.
Using excavators, rescuers late on Sunday cleared 80 percent of the debris and found bodies and body parts of the mostly teenage victims, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said in a statement.
As of this morning, "we have retrieved 54 dead victims, including five body parts," National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) operations director Yudhi Bramantyo told a press conference.
Budi Irawan, a deputy at the BNPB, said rescuers were expected to finish their search by the end of Monday for 13 more trapped victims.
"The number of victims is the biggest this year from one building," he told a press conference. "Out of all the disasters in 2025, natural or not, there hasn't been as many dead victims as the ones in Sidoarjo."
Yudhi Bramantyo, a search and rescue agency official, said at the same news conference that five other body parts were found, indicating the death toll is likely at least 54 people.
Investigators have been examining the cause of the collapse, but initial indications suggest that substandard construction may have contributed to the incident, according to experts.
The families of the missing agreed on Thursday for heavy equipment to be used, after the 72-hour "golden period" for the best chance of survival came to an end.
Rescuers are continuing their search, with footage shared by the search and rescue agency showing recovery workers carrying orange body bags out of the ruins of the school.
Authorities have said the cause of the collapse was construction work on the upper floors that the school's foundations could not support.
Across Indonesia, there are about 42,000 Islamic school buildings, known locally as a pesantren, data from the country's religious affairs ministry shows.
Only 50 pesantren have building permits, Public Works Minister Dody Hanggodo was quoted by local media as saying on Sunday.
It is not immediately clear if Al Khoziny had a building permit. Reuters could not immediately contact school authorities for comment.
