Indonesia has suspended the search for the remains of a collapsed school after 67 bodies were found. In late September, a three-story building at an Islamic boarding school in East Java collapsed while it was being upgraded to a fourth floor, trapping students and construction workers.
Rescue teams were able to pull some people alive from the rubble, but only bodies and body parts were later found. The search mission, which began on September 29 and has been ongoing since, ended on October 8. The time has now come to call off the search and rescue operation, said Mohammad Sayyaf, head of the national rescue and search agency.
The agency said 171 people had been evacuated, including those who had been pulled from the rubble. The death toll is 67, with eight of them having only recovered body parts, while 104 people were still alive after the collapse, said Budi Erawan, deputy head of the field team.
Initial investigations indicate that the collapse of the Al Khozini religious school in the town of Sidoarjo was caused by problems with the foundation. It is not clear whether the school had undergone proper structural tests and was built with the approval of the authorities.
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