Sidolho, Indonesia
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Rescuers carefully slid 13-year-old Syailendra Haikal from the twisted wreckage of a fallen Indonesian boarding school, and squatted under a huge slab of concrete and corrugated form. A faint light of short hope in the middle of a disaster.
Haikal was taken to hospital with moderate injuries, authorities said. However, as the search at the Arkozinini Islamic Boarding School in Sidu Alho, about 420 miles east of Jakarta, entered its fourth day on Thursday, Indonesian authorities have made the painful decision to move from rescue to recovery.
The drilling process was intentionally slow to avoid further collapse, and rescuers have been working on a shift to carefully remove debris.
The terrifying mother, father and loved ones waited in breath, praying for miracles, fearing the worst.
The team meticulously carves tunnels under the tiles, roaming their hands and knees, knowing that the unstable structure can once again succumb to them.
Relief and despair cut off their bold rescue mission as they slowly extracted a few children.
Haikal, one of the survivors of the collapse, at a hospital in East Java.
“Bismillah (in the name of God), my child is strong, my child is strong, my child is strong,” he continued to say, “Dr. dwi ajeng tyasusanti, Haikal’s mother, told CNN affiliate CNN Indonesia from the hospital on Thursday. “Haikal made it… His (injury) was only on his face.
Haikal was among seven teenage boys who were pulled out of the school pockets that collapsed on Wednesday. Two of them died. Hope is declining for dozens of classmates who remain buried.
Authorities say at least five people have died, and as of Thursday morning 59 people were still missing.
Hundreds of people crowded the streets near the disaster site, missing families gathered at nearby meeting points, waiting for news, and checking a list of names pinned to the notification board.
Among them is Umi Krusum, 37, from Madura Island, off the northeast coast of Java, who was studying at school when his 15-year-old son Sulaiman Hadi collapsed.
Sulaiman was in his third year at Madrasa Tsanawiya or secondary school.
“I still believe I can find my son alive. I ask the rescuer to continue the search until he finds him. He is my only child,” Crusum visibly suffers from CNN.
Kursum, who works in the capital Jakarta, rushes to Sidulho after learning that Sulaiman is one of the missing people. The last time she spoke to her son was three days before the collapse, but he said he felt happy despite living far from his mother.
Many students, mainly from low-income families, boys ages 12 to 18, performed afternoon prayers when the prayer hall fell over them on Monday.
Another distraught mother told CNN that she suffered from what her son experienced under the tile rub and wanted a miracle.
Yudhi Bramantyo, operations director of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), told CNN late Wednesday that rescuers had not detected any further signs of living.
“All victims who were able to communicate with rescue groups have already evacuated from two different search sectors today,” Bramantho said.
The team took the area by storm with thermal cameras and checked the survivors any further, but to no avail.
Officials met with the family on Thursday and agreed to use heavy machinery to remove debris and retrieve the body.
The use of excavators and other equipment was first stopped for fear that the unstable building would collapse further, and Bramantio said their use would effectively close the possibility of finding survivors through manual excavation or tunneling.
Search efforts became even more complicated after the earthquake collapsed about 124 miles from the collapse site on Tuesday, with authorities afraid that the effects of those tremors might have made the debris even more tense.
The number of people believed to have been buried was revised from 91 to 59 on Wednesday. But officials say it’s unclear what the true number is. The school attendance list and reports from families of missing people are all they have to be based on numbers.
The boarding house was one of thousands of Islamic schools known as Pestorence, where the majority of Muslim states and construction work was carried out on the buildings at the time of the collapse.
Rescue squads established communication with a group of students trapped in Tuesday, destroying oxygen, food and water to keep them alive. Inches, in inches, they dug a narrow tunnel (just 60cm wide) to reach the group.
Before 3pm local time on Wednesday, they managed to retrieve the bodies of one of the seven boys. A few minutes later, Haikal was drawn out alive. His survival was credited to the officials who kept speaking and supplied him with food and water until he was released, Basarnas said.
Over the next six hours, the team worked in a narrow tunnel until everything was removed. According to Basarnas, the boy identified as Saifal Rozi was released in stable condition at 8:20pm local time. He was the last boy rescued alive on Wednesday.
