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Last two missing students found dead in Turi tragedy

Fatal accident: A member of a search and rescue (SAR) team walks along the banks of the Sempor River in Sleman, Yogyakarta, to search for the body of one of the 10 students of SMP 1 state junior high school in Turi, Yogyakarta, who were killed after being swept away by a flash flood during a hike on Friday evening

Sri Wahyuni and Bambang Muryanto (The Jakarta Post)
Sleman
Mon, February 24, 2020

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Last two missing students found dead in Turi tragedy

F

atal accident: A member of a search and rescue (SAR) team walks along the banks of the Sempor River in Sleman, Yogyakarta, to search for the body of one of the 10 students of SMP 1 state junior high school in Turi, Yogyakarta, who were killed after being swept away by a flash flood during a hike on Friday evening.(JP/Tarko Sudiarno)

Saturday was supposed to be a happy day for the family of Khoirunnisa Nurcahyani Sukmaningtyas, a seventh grader of SMP 1 state junior high school in Turi, Sleman, Yogyakarta, as they were to get together to celebrate the student’s birthday.

Unfortunately, they had to gather instead at her funeral that day as she was one of victims of a flash flood on the Sempor River in Yogyakarta’s Sleman that swept away a group of scouts from the junior high school who were hiking by the river on Friday.

Rescuers had found and recovered eight bodies by Saturday noon, including Khoirunnisa, who was buried in Girikerto village in Sleman.

Some mourners were unable to hold back their tears as Khoirunnisa’s grandfather, Sumarno, gave a speech during the funeral, criticizing the school for not taking safety into consideration before proceeding with the riverside hike with more than 200 students.

“For SMP 1 Turi and other schools, please be more careful next time. Do mind the weather conditions so similar incidents will never happen again,” Sumarno said during the funeral. Khoirunnisa was his granddaughter from his first son.

He added that everyone, especially teachers, should use the accident as a lesson.

“I cannot imagine if the 250 students had all been lost,” he said while holding back tears.

The incident occurred on Friday, when 249 seventh and eighth graders from SMP 1 Turi went hiking along the banks of the Sempor River as part of a scouting activity involving both girls and boys. During the hike, the river suddenly flooded and the currents swept away many of the students.

On Sunday, a search and rescue (SAR) team scouring the river recovered the bodies of the remaining two missing junior high school students, raising the death toll to 10.

“We found the bodies around the Matras Dam, about 400 meters from where [the students were swept away in the flood],” SAR operations commander Asnawi said in a statement on Sunday.

The bodies were recovered in the early hours of Sunday and taken to the Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Yogyakarta for identification, he said.

“With the discovery of all the victims, the SAR operation is now complete,” Asnawi said.

All 10 fatalities were female students, who were all wearing long skirts that made them especially prone to being dragged away by the strong currents, according to Yogyakarta National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) head L. Wahyu Efendi.

The Yogyakarta Police have named a physical education teacher at SMP 1 Turi — who also served as a scout leader during the riverside hike on Friday — a suspect for negligence. He was among seven scoutmasters who were present during the incident.

Many criticized the school's decision to continue the hike despite the bad weather. Locals said drizzle had started at the time the scouts started their hike and they claimed they worried it was already raining upstream and that would cause a flash flood.

Fifty-two-year-old Hestiwartini, the mother of Yasinta Bunga Maharani, one of the last two victims to be found dead on Sunday, expressed a similar regret.

She said her only daughter only learned about the planned riverside hike from a WhatsApp message she read before departing for school on Friday morning.

“I told her that day not to join the hike because of the weather. However, she said she was afraid of being scolded if she didn’t join the activity,” Hestiwartini said. She was waiting for news regarding her daughter’s condition outside the school principal’s office when The Jakarta Post talked to her on Saturday.

She could not help crying as she recounted that Yasinta returned home on Friday at noon for lunch prior to departing for the outing.

“She actually didn’t want to go,” Hestiwartini said, wiping her tears with her hands.

Mulyadi, the father of eighth grader Latifah Zulfa, said the school should take responsibility for the accident. His daughter was among the students who were killed by the flash flood.

“It was reckless,” he said.

According to Tita Vhasya Pradita, a 13-year-old girl scout who survived the flash flood, as the students were making their way toward the river, they were urged by several hamlet residents to stop their hike because of flooding in the north.

"I heard the scoutmaster say that it was OK because our lives were in God’s hands,” Tita said.

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