Thursday 02 / October / 2025
Detecting "no more signs of life," rescuers in Indonesia on Thursday decided to use heavy machinery to remove the debris of the school that collapsed on Monday.
A part of the multi-story building of the school in Java collapsed on Monday while students gathered for prayers in the afternoon.
Five students were rescued on Wednesday, but nearly 60 teenage students are still missing, sparking fears that none of them survived the accident.
After three days of relentless rescue operations, five people have been confirmed dead while 59 are still missing.
The students were mostly teenage boys in grades seven to 12. Female students were praying in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.
Operation to proceed with caution
On Thursday, more than 200 rescue workers were present on the site with ambulances ready to take any survivors found quickly to the hospital.
"We used high-tech equipment like thermal drones, and, scientifically, there were no more signs of life," said Suharyanto, the head of the country's disaster mitigation agency.
Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs, Pratikno, told the media that the families of those still missing were consulted before taking the decision.
Pratikno said on Thursday that the rescue work would proceed with extreme caution even though no more signs of life could be detected.
"In any case, we will be very, very careful when using the heavy machines," said Pratikno, who only goes by one name as is common in Indonesia.
Earlier, the rescuers refrained from using heavy machinery after the collapse, due to unstable debris. The rescuers had instead dug manually to find survivors.
