Crystal Dike
The cries from beneath the rubble cut through the night in Sidoarjo, East Java. Parents pressed their ears against the broken concrete of what was once the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School, praying to hear the faint voices of their children. Hours earlier, during evening prayers, the building had crumbled without warning — a tragedy now known as the Indonesian school collapse.
By dawn, officials confirmed at least three deaths and 99 injuries, with many students in critical condition. Even more devastating, 38 teenage boys — aged between 12 and 17 — remain missing, feared to be buried alive beneath layers of twisted concrete and steel.
For 13-year-old survivor Muhammad Rijalul Qoib, the memory is seared into his mind. “We were praying when the sound of rocks crashing filled the hall,” he said softly, his arm bandaged. “I tried to run, but the roof came down. My friends… some could not move.”
Rescue workers, armed with cutting tools and torches, inched carefully through the ruins. “The structure has collapsed like a pancake,” explained Mohammad Syafeii, head of the national search and rescue agency Basarnas. “Every wrong move risks crushing whoever is still alive inside. That is the danger we face.”
Families clung to hope through the long night. Rosida, 47, has not left the site since Monday. Her son, Kaffa Ahmad Maulana, is still missing. “I last spoke with him the day before the accident. Nothing seemed unusual,” she whispered, eyes fixed on the ruins. “Now I just want him back.”
Authorities blamed the Indonesian school collapse on weak foundations that buckled under the weight of two additional floors added without proper reinforcement. Local officials later admitted the expansion had been carried out without permits. Girls, praying in another section of the school, managed to escape unharmed.
The caretaker of the school, KH Abdus Salam Mujib, expressed sorrow, calling the disaster “God’s will.” But to many in Sidoarjo, the collapse feels less like fate and more like a man-made failure.
The disaster has renewed urgent questions about building safety in Indonesia, a country where the International Labour Organization warns construction oversight remains dangerously lax. Only weeks ago, a similar collapse in West Java killed four people during a prayer recital.
For the villagers now keeping vigil outside Al Khoziny, those debates feel far away. Their world is narrowed to one hope — that rescuers will find survivors. Every faint cry under the rubble fuels that hope. Every hour that passes dims it.
As one anxious father said quietly, staring into the ruins: “This school was meant to shape their future. Now it has buried them.”