Global News Podcast - Race for survivors after Indonesian school collapse

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

The race to save dozens of students after a school collapses in Indonesia. At least four students were killed and about 100 injured, some critically, after the two-storey Islamic Boarding School in East Java caved in. Hundreds of students, most of them teenage boys, had gathered to pray in the building when it gave way. The authorities on Wednesday said crying and shouting could still be heard from under the rubble, while anxious relatives who had camped out at the school overnight awaited news of their loved ones.Also: shutdown at Oktoberfest after an explosion in Munich, the controversial South African opposition politician Julius Malema is found guilty of gun charges, dozens are dead after an earthquake in the Philippines, and Indian doctors get help with their handwriting.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jolil and at 16 hours GMT on Wednesday the 1st of October, these are our main stories. Two days on from the collapse of a school, rescuers in Indonesia continue to search for dozens of boys buried in the rubble. The radical South African politician Julius Malema is found guilty of firing a gun in a public place. The International Red Cross is forced to cease operas. operations in Gaza City because of the intensity of the Israeli offensive there. Also in this podcast, we've reached 72 million more children this year. We've saved 1.7 million children from future deaths.

A record-breaking year for immunizations across the globe. Rescuers in Indonesia are racing to try to reach dozens of people believed to be trapped under the rubble of a school building two days after it suddenly collapsed, killing several people. Officials say the two-story building fell down because its foundations were not stable enough to support the weight of two more floors that were being added to it. Seven of those stuck in the rubble are responding to the rescuers and are receiving food and water as a delicate work of extricating them continues. This man, Shola Houdin, is waiting for news of his 15-year-old son.

He says the parents have offered to help in the search. They need to clear the rubble as soon as possible. There are so many of us, parents and guardians, who want to help. But we haven't had approval yet from the search and rescue team. Their managers haven't decided yet. Complicating the operation, a day after the collapse, an earthquake struck offshore, briefly halting the search. BBC Indonesia's Astidestra Ageng Rastri is at the school complex

from where she gave me this update shortly before we recorded this podcast. It's getting quite late here in Situarjo, and the families are still waiting and anxious about the update of the evacuation process. Earlier today, the search team said that they have three, two more students, but one student has pronounced dead, so making the death toll into four in total. The other one is still in a critical condition and has been handed to the hospital. The rescue team also mentioned that they have nearly 400 personnel taking shift on rotation, and they're planning to do the rescue 24 hours nonstop. This is to get the golden hour of rescue, which is within the 72 hours. And this is already the third day and time is running out. So they are still trying to be very careful in evacuating, but also racing with time. And the operation has been complicated by an earthquake that struck after the building collapsed.

yesterday an earthquake even though it's quite shallow and not really a huge earthquake but it did help the operation because every little shake can make a hazardous situation to the already a very messy rescue operation so the search team mentioned that all of the rubbles now is like a pancake layered, but also like a spider web. So if you're trying to pull out one rubble, it will affect other parts of the construction and they are feared if they're having a lot of heavy machinery, then it will risk further collapse. So until now, they are still doing the manual search. They're trying to create a tunnel, for example, to reach one of the students.

They're creating 60 centimeters only fit for one person to actually come in and try to drag that student out. So we are still waiting the result of all this evacuation. This probably will still go on until tomorrow or the next day. And we don't know at what point they will start to do having machinery. As do Destra Agen Khrastri in Indonesia. In a country, riven by racial tensions, a South African opposition politician Julius Malema has long been a controversial figure. And he recently came to global attention when President Trump showed a video of him

while hosting his South African counterpart at the White House as part of his widely discredited claim that a genocide is being committed against white Afrikaners. Now, a court in South Africa has found Mr. Malema guilty of firing a gun in a public place seven years ago. an offence which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Our correspondent in Johannesburg, Mione Jones, told us more about the case. It centres around this 2018 incident, a viral video from this rally for the economic freedom fighters, was spread on social media showing Mr. Malema firing a gun in the air whilst on stage singing and dancing during this rally.

A case was lodged by Afri Forum, which is an Afrikaner's rights group against him, accusing him of a number of things, including endangering the public, and the magistrate found him guilty of five counts, including firing an arm in a public place and reckless endangerment of a personal property. The sentencing is not going to be made until next year, early next year in January. And what's his response been? He spoke to his supporters outside the court straight after the conviction was made. He was very defiant. He called the ruling racist. He said that his white Afrikaner bodyguard who was also on trial had been acquitted because of his race. And he reiterated allegations he's made that this case against him is politically motivated.

He says that it's been brought forward as a way of trying to placate the Trump administration, which has used Mr. Malema as an example of somebody who uses inflammatory rhetoric towards the country's minority African population and said that his comments are leading to a genocide of white people in South Africa, which the government has denied and most people believe not to be true. But how is he seen in South Africa? Does he have much popular support? Well, his support's definitely dropped. In last year's general elections, his party, the economic freedom fighters, came in fourth with only just under 10% of the vote. His support's been diluted by other parties that have come forward. Former President Jacob Zuma's formed his MK party

that took a share of the EF's vote. And so he's been seen as on, necessarily controversial, a bit of a liability, and he's definitely not as popular as he was when he first came on the political scene. My Annie Jones. October 1st is a world's largest beer festival and usually attracts millions of visitors to the German city of Munich. It's been going on for nearly two weeks this year so far, but police closed the festival venue temporarily on Wednesday while they investigated an explosion and a fire at a house rigged

with explosives which killed one person. Bethany Bell has been following developments. Early this morning in Munich, there was a fire and also reportedly explosions at a house in the city in the north of Munich. Police say the fire, they believe, were set off deliberately and there's a big emergency operation happening around that house. But they believe there could be possible connections to the Octoberfest. They say they've reason to believe there was a bomb threat on the Oktoberfest site, the Theresean visa. And because of that, while they investigate those possible links, they have delayed the opening of the festival grounds today until 5 o'clock local time.

Normally the grounds would be open in the morning and people would be already going there to drink beer. It's a hugely important event, isn't it, for Munich? An enormously important event. Last year, I think almost 7 million visitors came to the event which has been described as the world's biggest folk and beer festival. And a lot of people are currently in Munich, of course, to take part in that. And, you know, this would have been a decision that would have been a big deal for the authorities to make, to decide to close it today temporarily. As we record this podcast, tens of thousands of US federal employees have begun the first of what may be many days of enforced idleness after a standoff between Democrats and Republicans triggered a government shutdown. Entire departments have been shuttered with thousands of federal workers now on unpaid leave. But essential workers like air traffic controllers and members of the military have to continue working, some without pay. President Trump has threatened to use the shutdown to introduce mass layoffs as both sides blame each other. With more, here's Naomi Ruckham from our partner station in the U.S. CBS.

Democrats are calling for a deal on health care provisions, which they say cannot wait. But top Republicans say they won't negotiate until the government reopens. So it's the usual blame game we often see in Washington this morning, while hundreds of thousands of jobs hang in the balance. All night long, lawmakers on both sides have been posting on social media saying the other side is responsible. The White House, for example, was quick to point the finger at the Democrats, posting an image on X shortly after midnight calling it a Democrat shutdown. Meantime, former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris pinned the blame

directly on the GOP, saying Republicans are in charge of the White House, the House, and the Senate. This is their shutdown. The longer the shutdown goes on, the bigger the impact on the broader economy. Here's some good news. The 74 million Americans who collect Social Security will keep getting their monthly checks. So that's good for consumer spending. But some services could be disrupted. And that means Wall Street is watching closely. Dow futures already dropped 200 points this morning. The shutdown could force the U.S. Labor Department to stop releasing crucial economic data like Friday's anticipated monthly jobs report. And without that kind of data, investors will have

to rely on other less reliable information. That means they might take more conservative positions because of the anticipated volatility. And that kind of delay for such an important report could also cause confusion and more questions about what the Federal Reserve might announce regarding interest rates. Worth noting, though, members of Congress and the President will continue to receive their paychecks during the shutdown. Still to come on this podcast, a special report from the Sudanese city of El Fasher, which has been under siege for more than 500 days. It's about all the people that I know. I see everyday people who I know die, places that I used to go destroy it.

My memory died, not just the people that I know. It's like a nightmare. The International Red Cross says it's had to suspend its work in Gaza City because of intensified Israeli military operations there. It says tens of thousands of Palestinians are facing harrowing humanitarian conditions as bombing continues. As we record this podcast, at least 41 people in Gaza have been killed today, Wednesday. Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, says residents have a final opportunity to flee. to the south. He's described the offensive as aimed at tightening the encirclement of Hamas fighters. Here's our Middle East correspondent, Yorand Nel. Most of the Palestinians killed were in Gaza

City, where residents say there was heavy bombing. Footage from a hospital shows bodybags lined up after strikes on a school being used as a shelter. The Israeli military has issued new orders for people in Gaza City to leave for the south of the territory along the coastal road and says it will no longer allow those in the south to return northwards. The International Committee of the Red Cross says it's now been forced to suspend its Gaza City operations temporarily to relocate its staff. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that those who remained in Gaza City would be terrorists and supporters of terror. Many Palestinians have refused to leave, including those who were elderly, sick or injured. Yoland Nell.

Meanwhile, time is running out for Hamas to give us. its response to Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan. The U.S. President said on Tuesday that the militant group had three to four days to agree to the Israeli-backed proposal or, in his words, face destruction. A senior Hamas official has told the BBC the group is unlikely to accept the plan. Over the past two years since Hamas' attack on Israel, more than 66,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Famine has been reported in parts of the strip. and nearly the entire population has been displaced. International journalists are barred from reporting from Gaza by Israel.

UNICEF's global spokesperson, James Elder, has been to the Palestinian Territory six times since the war began and is back there again now. He's been meeting displaced children and families. He's recorded some of what he's seen for us. I'm in Gaza City now, constant drones. It's the Air Force. I've heard multiple airstrikes.

I've seen multiple airstrikes just within a... hour. I'm looking out to devastation and comparing even when I was here in June and seeing I'm from photos just high-rise buildings that are completely now gone replaced only by a crater. A lot of children still here, a lot of children on the street and buildings that are just a shell now of what was a large apartment block. It looks like a doll's house, if you will, with all the walls gone out, people putting up some blankets and sheets to try, I guess, and give them some level of protection from the elements. Unisep, we've still got nutrition, centre's going here. We've got water. I've just seen a water truck come hundreds of people

trying to access that absolutely critical element of sustenance right now in what is a very active conflict setting. We've got a water delivery now, but of course it's chaos. I've got next to me a dozen, 15 children. That must be little girls aged in the age of 5 and 11 and they can't possibly compete in the panic of people to try and get action. access to some water. I'm talking to a woman in perfect English and somehow amid all this chaos, she's kept herself immaculate, but she has no water. She has no home. Her husband's been killed. She has no means to move anywhere else. She says she will just stay and I've watched her for 15 minutes just trying to get water and she says she's just afraid. And in the end, once the children I've got

water, what else could I do? I took her bucket and entered the melee. This is not a logistical problem. This is a political problem for it's solved very quickly. there's political will. Just a huge amount of stress and a population on the streets. Mum's just coming up to me and showing me babies with terrible, terrible rashes that have got to the point that the skin on their little babies is so raw that it's bleeding. Again, again, so many children doing that universal hand and mouth just showing how hungry they are, although their emaciated bodies tell me about the lack of food here.

I'm now in a UNICEF nutrition point in Gaza City. It's just a tent, but a lot of malnourished babies. We've got in this magic ready to use therapeutic food, but there's a huge need. Anyone I speak to on the street, the mums, the dads are terrified about where things are headed, desperate to know is this war ending. Everyone is explaining to me that even if they want to get out of Gaza City, they can't.

They haven't got the money to go south. And they know when they go south without money, no tent, no land, no sanitation, as they say, no choice. UNICEF spokesperson, James Elder, in Gaza. For nearly a year and a half, the Sudanese city of Elfasha has endured a horrific medieval-style siege as paramilitaries try to seize the army's last stronghold in the western province of Darfur. 300,000 civilians are trapped inside, around half of them believed to be children. Many of them are having to eat animal feed to survive.

as the civil war rages on. And an upsurge in drone attacks has killed dozens of people in recent days. It's extremely difficult to report from inside El Fasher, but the BBC has worked with local journalists in the city to capture what life is like for those trapped there. Barbara Pletasha has this report, some parts of which are distressing.

RSF fighters have besieged El Fashar for more than 500 days, and now they're closing in on key military sites. Army-held territory has shrunk to a pocket around the airport. 13-year-old Ahmed Abdul-Rahman was injured in a recent shelling attack. He can hear the sounds of battle from where he lies on the ground in a makeshift cluster of tents. Ahmed's mother, Islam Abdullah, says he needs treatment, but there's barely any medical care.

She lifts his shirt to show the wounds, his bony back, a reminder of the hunger stalking this city. Nearby, Hamida Addam Ali is unable to move. Her leg torn apart by shrapnel. She was carried to this camp after lying for five days on the road. I don't know if my husband is dead or alive. My children have been crying for days because there is no food. My leg is rotting.

I have nothing. In propaganda videos, the rapid support forces celebrate what they portray as imminent victory. They are determined to oust the army's last foothold in the western region of Darfur. This would give them a strategic advantage in the civil war, says Sudanese analyst Khalud Khair. Taking al-Farshed and by extension the rest of North Darfur state allows them to control the borders with Libya, with Chad, with Central African Republic and with South Sudan and parts of Egypt. That whole area would basically give them the means to control weapons coming into the country, but also that would allow them then to launch renewed attacks on Khartoum

and further east. Local armed groups known as the joint forces fighting along with the military also have a lot at stake, she says. For the joint forces, if they lose the four, the RSF will have taken over the entire five states. This is a fight for their lives, but for the armed groups also a fight for their political survival. The advance of the rapid support forces is powered by deadly drones. This footage shows them hitting military sites. but also markets. Last month, more than 75 people were killed in a strike on a mosque. Samah Abdullah Hussein says her young son, Samir, was buried in that mass grave. He'd been killed the day before, his brother injured. The shells hit the schoolyard where they'd taken refuge.

He was heat in the head. His brain came out. Hundreds of thousands have fled Alfashir. Those who make it to safety say Pia. were attacked, robbed and killed as they left. The UN warns of more atrocities if RSF fighters overrun the city. The paramilitaries deny war crimes, trying to send a different message with these new videos, showing them stopping and greeting those who flee. Watching the footage is a refugee driven out of El Fasher

and the country by the war. It's like a deja vu. I know all those people. You know all those people? Yeah, I know that. The last guy we used to play soccer with them. The one that in the middle, he's a musician. I know him from her father. He also sees some relatives in the group

and doesn't want to be named to protect them. It must have been quite a shock. Yeah, it is really devastated. I will be worried until I hear from them or they send me a message that they are okay and they are in a safe place. Later that day, he sent me word that his relatives were safe, a tremendous relief, but a temporary one.

It's about all the people that I know. I see everyday people whom I know die, places that I used to go destroyed. My memory died, not just the people that I know. It's like a nightmare, you know. Many fear what the next weeks might bring. Those still trapped in the city can only wait and try to survive. That report by Barbara Plet Usher. As we record this podcast, the number of dead from a powerful earthquake in the Central Philippines has risen to nearly 70, with many more injured being treated in local hospitals, sometimes outside because of the fear of aftershocks. The quake struck about 10pm local time on Tuesday. Causing panic and cracking bridges and roads as well as destroying buildings.

Rescuers are continuing to search for survivors as aid teams have rushed to the area to help the overwhelmed hospitals. There are many patients already. We're already overwhelmed, so we have to bring them to the city. Jonathan Head is following the story. It's a slow process of getting the kind of equipment you need into the affected areas because roads have been very badly damaged. There are bridges down.

Power and water have been cut. And there's a shortage. There's an appeal still going out for heavy lifting machinery to search for people who are trapped under collapse. buildings. The most affected places, a town called Bogor right on the very northern tip of the island of Sabu. That's only about

20 kilometres from the epicentre of the quake. And we've seen from all the images that have been released just how powerful the shaking was. I mean, people were literally being thrown from side to side. They described seeing their homes when they rushed out about dancing. So it must have been pretty awful

being so close to the epicenter. It's a low-rise town. It's called a city, but it's a population of about 90,000. So there aren't any high buildings that we know of that have come down, but there are awful lot of, you know, regular houses, concrete houses that have collapsed. And they need heavy lifting equipment. They need medical volunteers too. It's just logistically difficult getting people up to this area when you have transport logistics so badly damaged. The state is mobilizing its own resources. They've sent a Coast Guard ship with medics on board. They have

quite large Coast Guard vessels in the Philippines and also the Air Force is to employing helicopters. I know from experience, you know, the Philippines authorities are pretty good at responding to disasters, but, you know, this has caused an awful lot of damage and a great deal of help is needed. As you say, they are pretty good at responding to disasters, partly because they have to deal with so many, because this comes week after back-to-back typhoons, which have killed more than a dozen people and an unusually wet monsoon season. Yeah, I mean, the typhoons seem to be the impression we get as they're getting more severe, which may be a result of climate change.

There hasn't been one as severe as Typhoon Hayam, which hit this same area 12 years ago. And in fact, sadly, seven of the people who died in Bogo were in a village built specially for survivors of that typhoon. This is the nature of the Philippines. It is really vulnerable to natural disasters and it doesn't matter how good they are at responding to them. There are always casualties and damage

when they're as severe as this earthquake was. Jonathan Head. Now, at a time of rising vaccine skepticism, here is some good news. It's been a record year for immunisations across the globe. The Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, says it's helped to deliver vaccines that have saved 1.7 million lives, 400,000 more than the year before.

They've seen big improvements in reaching children in places like Syria, Mali and Haiti. And the world's first malaria vaccine has also become the fastest routine rollout in Gavi's history. Dr. Sanya Nistar, is its CEO. She's been speaking to Anna Foster. I think it's the strength of the Gavi model that has allowed us, you know, this very humbling success this year. We've reached 72 million more children this year.

We've saved 1.7 million children from future deaths. This year has also helped us build stability and accrue $20 billion worth of economic benefits over and above what we had already achieved in the last 25 years. This year, we are also on track to introduce the malaria vaccine in 25 countries. You know, Britain should be very proud. The malaria vaccine is a product of British science. Also this year, more girls will be reached with the HPV vaccine then in the past 10 years combined. So it has indeed been a very successful in a record year for Gavi and for immunization more broadly. and for public health. What are the challenges that you're still facing and particularly the

areas that you're still struggling to get to that you would want to be active in? I mean, in terms of the broader challenges, of course, you know that official development assistance has been significantly cut down. So this is broadly one of the challenges. Gavi has been very successful and it's very humbling, you know, to share with you that at our recent replenishment event, we were able to secure $9 billion towards the target of $12 billion, but that notwithstanding, it is a very challenging environment for resource mobilization. And of course, we have to grapple with a number of different fragile contexts. There is, of course, Ukraine and Syria and Gaza, and there are dreadful humanitarian situations

in Sudan and the Horn of Africa. So we are pivoting and we are making our policies and procedures. more agile to be able to navigate these very difficult environments. Dr. Sanya Nistar. Now, does it matter in this age of keyboards if you have terrible handwriting? Well, an Indian court has ruled that it does. It's ordered doctors to write their prescriptions legibly after finding one medic's report incomprehensible.

David Lewis reports. It's a story often retold, a quipped joke about the doctor with the handwriting so bad the patient doesn't have a clue what they wrote. But now, in India at least, it's become a legal issue. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that legible medical prescription is a fundamental right, as it can clearly make a difference between life and death. The catalyst for the move is a serious one. In a recent case, a woman alleged abuse and forgery against a man, only for the judge to find the medical legal report written by a government doctor who'd examined her simply impossible to read. Not even a single word or letter was legible, Justice

Jasca Prit Singh-Puri wrote. It is shocking that government doctors are still writing prescriptions by hand which cannot be read by anybody except perhaps some chemists, the judge insisted. And the court went further, asking authorities to include handwriting lessons in the medical school curriculum. Doctors have now been set a two-year timeline for rolling out digitised prescriptions. Until that happens, all prescriptions must be clearly written in capital letters, no more scrawl. That's the message. But such malpractice happens elsewhere too. Here in the UK, a woman in Scotland suffered chemical injuries after she was mistakenly given erectile dysfunction cream for a dry eye condition. A handwriting slip-up meant she was given Vitaros cream

instead of the eye lubricant Vitar Posse. Fortunately, after a trip to hospital, her swollen eyelid went down after a few days. David Lewis, and you might like to know that despite the jokes about doctors' terrible handwriting, studies have failed to back up the conventional wisdom that their handwriting is so much worse than everyone else's. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.com. co.uk. This edition was mixed by Zabiholokorosh. The producers were Alice Adley and

Stephanie Tillotson. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Joliel. Until next time. Goodbye.