JAKARTA: The death toll from the collapse of a school building in Indonesia’s East Java province has risen to eight, a senior rescue official said Friday.
Suharyanto, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, said three more bodies were retrieved by rescuers, bringing the fatalities to eight. He said heavy machinery has been deployed in the ongoing excavation, with 55 people still unaccounted for.
Earlier, rescue workers had relied mainly on manual excavation out of concern that heavy equipment could trigger further collapse.
Part of the multi-storey Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in Sidoarjo district collapsed on Monday while undergoing unauthorized renovation, trapping dozens of students. –Agencies
