The death toll from the collapse of a school in Indonesia last Monday (September 29, 2025) has climbed to at least 50 people as rescuers have cleared nearly all of the debris, rescue authorities said on Monday (October 6, 2025), 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 the Indonesian town of Sidoarjo, in East Java Province, trapping and later killing them.

Using excavators, rescuers late on Sunday (October 5, 2025) cleared 80% of the debris and found bodies and body parts of the mostly teenage victims, the Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement.

Budi Irawan, a Deputy at the Disaster Mitigation Agency, said a total of 50 people have died based on the bodies recovered, and rescuers were expected to finish their search by the end of Monday (October 6, 2025) 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.

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, Dody Hanggodo, the country’s public works minister, was quoted by local media as saying on Sunday (October 6, 2025).

It is not immediately clear if Al Khoziny had a building permit. Reuters could not immediately contact school authorities for comment.

The number of students confirmed dead after the collapse of an Islamic boarding school building in Indonesia rose to 36, from 16 a day earlier, the country’s disaster mitigation agency said on Sunday (October 5, 2025).

Efforts continued for a seventh day to search for the bodies of 27 students still declared missing — mostly teenage boys from the ages of 13 to 19 — trapped under the rubble, the agency said.

Cranes were deployed to excavate debris and search and evacuation efforts were 60% complete, according to the agency, which said it expected to clear all debris and finish the search on Monday.

The Al Khoziny school in the town of Sidoarjo in East Java province caved in last Monday, collapsing on top of hundreds of teenage students during afternoon prayers, its foundations unable to support ongoing construction work on its upper floors.

On Friday, rescuers received the parents’ permission to make use of heavy equipment after failing to find signs of life during previous efforts.

Rescuers dug through tunnels in the remains of the building, calling out the boys’ names and using sensors to detect any movement, but found no signs of life.

Al Khoziny is an Islamic boarding school known locally as a pesantren.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has about 42,000 pesantren serving 7 million students, according to religious affairs ministry data.

The bodies of three boys were pulled early on Friday (October 3, 2025) from beneath the rubble of a school that collapsed in Indonesia and with more than 50 students still unaccounted for the death toll was expected to rise, authorities said.

Rescue crews had been working by hand since the collapse of the school on Monday as they searched for survivors, but with no more signs of life detected by Thursday they turned to heavy excavators equipped with jackhammers to help them progress more rapidly.

The structure fell on top of hundreds of people in a prayer hall at the century-old al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo on the eastern side of Indonesia’s Java island.

The students were mostly boys in grades seven to 12, between the ages of 12 and 19. Female students were praying in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.

Eight students have been confirmed dead and about 105 injured, many with head injuries and broken bones, and 55 remain unaccounted for.

Two of the bodies found on Friday were in the prayer hall area and one was found closer to an exit as if he had been attempting to escape, according to Suharyanto, the head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, who goes by one name as is common in Indonesia.

Authorities have said the building was two stories, but two more levels were being added without a permit. Police said the old building’s foundation apparently was unable to support two floors of concrete and collapsed during the pouring process.

School officials have not yet commented.

Crews worked in the hot sun on Friday to break up and remove large slabs of concrete, with the smell of decomposing bodies a grim reminder of what they would find underneath.

Suharyanto told reporters at the scene that the recovery efforts were expected to be complete by the end of Saturday.

At least 65 students are presumed buried under the rubble of an Islamic school building that collapsed in Indonesia. The building under construction collapsed on dozens of praying students on Monday (September 29, 2025), killing at least one student, injuring dozens and burying others in the rubble, officials said.

Police, soldiers and rescue workers dug into the debris through the night in attempts to locate at least three additional students believed trapped alive at Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in the East Java town of Sidoarjo. Rescuers also said they saw additional bodies, indicating the death toll was likely to rise.

The students were performing afternoon prayers in a building that was undergoing an unauthorised expansion when it suddenly collapsed on top of them, provincial police spokesperson Jules Abraham Abast said.

One male student was killed and 83 other students were injured and taken to two nearby hospitals, some of them in critical condition, officials said.

Most of the victims were male, because female students were praying separately in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said. Residents, teachers and administrators assisted injured students, many with head injuries and broken bones.

Authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the building’s collapse.

Renovation without permit

Mr. Abast said the old prayer hall was originally only two stories, but had been renovated by adding two more floors without a permit to build a new structure.

“The old building’s foundation was apparently unable to support two floors of concrete and collapsed during the pouring process,” Mr. Abast said.

Television reports showed dozens of rescue workers, police and soldiers desperately digging through steel reinforced concrete debris in search of survivors in overnight rescue operations, supported by heavy equipment.

Families of the students gathered near the collapsed building, anxiously awaiting news of their children. Relatives wailed as they watched rescuers pull a dusty, injured student from a buried hall.

Heavy slabs of concrete and other rubble and unstable parts of the building hampered search and rescue efforts, said Nanang Sigit, who led the effort. Three students were believed to be trapped alive under the rubble.

“We have been running oxygen and water to those still trapped under the debris and keeping them alive while we work hard to get them out,” Mr. Sigit said.

He added that rescuers saw several bodies scattered under the rubble, but that they focused on saving those who were still alive.