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The number of fatalities from a devastating school building collapse in Indonesia escalated to 14 on Friday as emergency crews pulled several bodies from beneath the debris. Numerous of students remain unaccounted for and the number of casualties is expected to increase further.

Search Operations Ramp Up as Survivor Search Narrows

Initially, emergency personnel conducted manual searches for those trapped alive after the structure caved in on Monday. However, after no more signs of life found by Thursday, they turned to large machinery fitted with jackhammers to speed up the operation.

Crews worked in the hot sun on Friday to demolish and clear massive pieces of concrete, with the smell of decomposing bodies a grim reminder of what they would discover underneath.

By the end of the day, they had found nine bodies, raising the official fatality count to 14, with approximately 50 students remaining missing.

Specifics of the Collapse

The building collapsed on top of hundreds of people on Monday in a prayer hall at the century-old Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo in East Java, about 780km (480 miles) east of Jakarta.

The chief of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, Suharyanto, informed reporters at the scene on Friday that the retrieval operation were projected to be complete by the end of Saturday.

The students were mostly boys in classes seven to 12, aged from 12 and 19 years of age. Female students were praying in a different section of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.

Eyewitness Testimony: Narrow Survival from the Debris

Thirteen-year-old Rizalul Qoib, one of 104 those who escaped, returned to the scene on Friday to look at what was left of his school, and said he was lucky to have gotten out with only a small cut to his head.

He said, like the others, he had been praying when he heard something like the noise of falling rocks, which got louder and louder.

“I ceased my prayers and fled when I felt the floor shaking,” he remembered. “Suddenly the building collapsed, the wreckage of the roof landed on my head, my face.”

Then the room went dark, but he heard someone shouting, “over here, follow me” and he followed the voice until he finally found a narrow gap in the debris.

“I just followed the light,” Qoib said.

Many of the others who were hurt but got out or were rescued experienced severe head injuries and broken bones, and are still being treated in the hospital.

Reason of the Disaster

Authorities have stated the structure was two storeys, but two more levels were under construction without a permit. Police said the old building’s foundation seemingly was unable to support the extra floors and failed during the pouring process.

Administrative staff have not yet commented.