Death toll from Indonesian school collapse rises to 14 as crews pull more bodies from rubble

SIDOARJO, Indonesia (AP) — The death toll from a school collapse in Indonesia rose to 14 on Friday after recovery crews pulled multiple bodies from beneath the rubble. Dozens of students remain unaccounted for and the death toll is expected to rise.

Rescuers initially searched by hand for survivors after the building caved in Monday. But with no more signs of life detected by Thursday they turned to heavy excavators equipped with jackhammers to help them progress more rapidly.

By Friday evening, they had found nine bodies, bringing the confirmed death toll to 14, with nearly 50 students still unaccounted for.

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

Two of the bodies found 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.

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.

Thirteen-year-old Rizalul Qoib, one of 104 survivors, returned to the scene on Friday to look at what was left of his school, and said he was lucky to have gotten out with only a minor gash to his head.

He said, like the others, he had been praying when he heard something like the sound of falling rocks, which got louder and louder.

“I stopped praying and fled when I felt the floor shaking,” he recalled.

“Suddenly the building collapsed, the debris of the roof fell on my head, my face.”

Then the room went dark, but he heard someone shouting “this way, this way” and he followed the voice until he eventually found a narrow gap in the rubble.

“I just followed the light,” he said.

Many of the others who were injured but escaped or were rescued suffered serious head trauma and broken bones and are still being treated in the hospital.

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 Friday to break up and remove large slabs of concrete, with the smell of decomposing bodies as a grim reminder of what they would find underneath.

Suharyanto, of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, told reporters at the scene on Friday that the recovery efforts were expected to be complete by the end of Saturday.

Rising reported from Bangkok.

A student walks pas a TV screen showing the search efforts for the missing people of a building that collapsed at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Women walk near the Islamic boarding school compound where a building collapsed, in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Rescuers gather outside the islamic boarding school where a building collapsed as the search for missing people is underway in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

A rescuer walks past a crane prepared for the search of missing people of a building that collapsed at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

A rescuer walks near the islamic boarding school where a building collapsed in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Rescuers don their protective suits during the search for victims of a collapsed building at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

Rescuers spray disinfectant during the search for victims of a collapsed building at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

Rescuers disinfect the body bag containing the body of a victim of a collapsed building at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

Rescuers carry the body of a victim of a collapsed building at an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

Rescuers carry the body of a victim after an Islamic boarding school collapsed in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States said Sunday it rescued a service member missing behind enemy lines since Iran downed a fighter jet, as President Donald Trump escalated pressure on Tehran with renewed threats to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump wrote in a social media post that the aviator is injured but “will be just fine,” adding that the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that the U.S. had been monitoring his location in the lead-up to his rescue.

“This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,” Trump wrote.

The airman's extraction followed a frantic U.S. search-and-rescue operation after the Friday crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, as Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in an “enemy pilot.”

A second crew member was rescued earlier.

The fighter jet was the first U.S. aircraft to have crashed in Iranian territory since the war, now in its sixth week, erupted.

Trump said last week that the U.S. had “decimated” Iran and would finish the war “very fast.” Two days later, Iran shot down two U.S. military planes, showing the ongoing perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of a degraded Iranian military to continue to hit back.

The other jet to go down was a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it crashed was immediately known.

In Kuwait, an Iranian drone attack caused significant damage to two power plants and put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity. No injuries were reported from the attack, the ministry said.

In Bahrain, the national oil company said that a drone attack caused a fire at one of its storage facilities, which was extinguished. It said the damage was still being assessed and no injuries had been reported.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities responded to multiple fires at the Borouge petrochemicals plant, a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and Borealis of Austria. They say the fires were caused by falling debris following successful interceptions by air defense systems, but production at the plant in Ruwais, near the UAE’s western border with Saudi Arabia, has halted.

The strike came a day after Israel struck a petrochemical plant in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said generated revenue that it had used to fund the war.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

Trump renewed his threats for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz by Monday or face devastating consequences, writing Saturday in a social media post: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”

The waterway is a critical chokepoint for global energy shipments, especially oil and gas moving from the Persian Gulf to Europe and Asia. Disruptions there have injected volatility into the market and pushed oil and gas-importing countries to seek alternative sources.

“The doors of hell will be opened to you” if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi with the country’s joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump’s renewed threat, state media reported. In turn, the general threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told The Associated Press that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track” after Islamabad last week said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials “have never refused to go to Islamabad.”

Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt traffic through a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb.

The strait, 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?” Qalibaf wrote.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.

This report has been corrected to show that Borealis is an Austrian company and not Australian.

Metz reproted from Jerusalem. Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington, contributed to this report.

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A man, who fled Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon with his family, sleeps in his car used as shelter, along a seaside promenade in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Followers of Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans as they wave national Iraqi flag during a protest against U.S. and Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

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