In the early afternoon of September 29, 2025, the tranquil routine of prayer at the Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in Sidoarjo, East Java, was shattered by catastrophe. Hundreds of students, mostly boys aged 12 to 19, had gathered in the school’s prayer hall—a space that, for nearly a century, had been a pillar of religious education and community life. But as the students prayed, the ceiling suddenly gave way, unleashing tons of concrete and debris upon those gathered below.
Sixteen-year-old Muhammad Royhan Firdaus was among those caught in the chaos. He’d just finished his prayers when he felt something strike his head. "I thought it was an earthquake," he told Al Jazeera. "We all started to run." But it wasn’t an earthquake. For weeks, construction had been underway above, where workers were pouring concrete to add new floors. As the weight mounted, the entire structure collapsed in what officials described as a "pancake" effect—floor upon floor caving in on itself.
Royhan managed to escape, but not without injury. He broke his leg and fractured his shoulder so severely that surgeons at Siti Fajar Hospital had to insert a metal pin. He was one of the fortunate ones. By the following weekend, rescue teams had recovered 35 additional bodies, raising the confirmed death toll to 54, with 13 students still unaccounted for as of October 6, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency and search and rescue officials cited by The Guardian and Associated Press.
Rescue operations were nothing short of herculean. Teams used heavy excavators, jackhammers, circular saws, and, when all else failed, their bare hands to sift through the rubble. The urgency was palpable as families waited and prayed for news of their loved ones. Muhammad Ali, whose 14-year-old son Muhammad Fajri Ali was missing, camped outside the wreckage, clinging to hope. "I am hoping for a miracle," he told Al Jazeera.
For many, the tragedy was compounded by a sense of resignation. The school’s caretaker, Abdus Salam Mujib—a respected Islamic cleric—offered a public apology in the aftermath. "This is indeed God’s will, so we must all be patient, and may God replace it with goodness, with something much better," he said, as reported by AP. "We must be confident that God will reward those affected by this incident with great rewards." This sentiment echoed throughout the community, where religious leaders, or kyai and ustadz, are held in deep reverence. As Syamsul Arifin, a sociology of religion lecturer at Muhammadiyah University, explained to Al Jazeera, "They are considered closer to God because of how religious they are, which is why people have such extraordinary respect for them."
Yet, beneath the surface, the collapse has ignited a broader debate about building safety and regulatory oversight in Indonesia’s sprawling network of Islamic boarding schools, known as pesantren. There are more than 30,000 such schools nationwide, with nearly 7,000 in East Java alone. Many, like Al-Khoziny—established in 1927 and a center of religious learning for generations—have expanded over the years, often without the benefit of modern engineering or proper permits.
Police investigations quickly revealed that two additional floors were being added to the school’s two-story building without the legally required construction permits. Sidoarjo district chief Subandi confirmed to AP and The Guardian that the school’s management never applied for the necessary approvals. "Many buildings, including traditional boarding school extensions, in non-urban areas were built without a permit," Subandi said. Indonesia’s 2002 Building Construction Code mandates that permits must be issued before any construction begins. The penalties for violations are severe: up to 15 years in prison and fines of nearly $500,000 when deaths result.
Construction experts were blunt in their assessments. Mudji Irmawan of the Tenth November Institute of Technology told AP, "The construction couldn’t support the load while the concrete was pouring [to build] the third floor because it didn’t meet standards and the whole 800-square-meters construction collapsed." He and other experts criticized the decision to allow students inside a building under active construction, calling it a grave lapse in judgment. Mohammad Abduh, a civil engineering lecturer at Muhammadiyah University, added that the phenomenon of "living structures"—where buildings are expanded over time without a master plan—was a common and dangerous practice in Indonesia. "Whatever the case, when building works are ongoing, no one should be doing any other activities inside," Abduh said.
The consequences were devastating. Of the hundreds of students trapped, only one escaped without injury. Ninety-seven received treatment for various wounds and were released from care, while six others remained hospitalized with serious injuries as of October 5. The search for the missing continued with the aid of thermal drones, but by October 2, authorities had found "no further signs of life," as Al Jazeera reported.
Despite the magnitude of the tragedy, blame was hard to come by among the affected families. Most parents, including Muhammad Royhan’s mother Yuni, expressed a desire for their children to return to the school once it is rebuilt. "We consider this a tragic accident," she said, declining to fault the school authorities. This attitude, experts say, is rooted in the deep trust and reverence for religious institutions in conservative communities. "Parents revert to theology and a very traditional way of thinking about religious authority," Arifin explained.
Still, the incident has forced a reckoning. East Java police chief Nanang Avianto announced a criminal investigation, with construction experts enlisted to determine whether negligence by the school directly caused the deaths. "We will investigate this case thoroughly," Avianto said. The spotlight has also turned to Indonesia’s broader pattern of illegal construction, especially in non-urban areas where regulations are often skirted and enforcement is lax.
For now, the community grieves. Men gather to pray near the coffins of the victims at the police hospital in Surabaya, while parents and classmates hold vigils at the site of the collapse. The hope is that lessons will be learned, and that the tragedy at Al-Khoziny will prompt reforms that prevent such heartbreak in the future. But for families like Muhammad Ali’s, the focus remains on the missing, and the faint hope that miracles can still happen, even amid the rubble.
