Rescuers set up a rope route during the evacuation process after the landslide from the Bolaang Mongondow Regency illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi, Indonesia February 28, 2019 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Photo by Antara Foto/Adwit B Pramono via Reuters
Eight people trapped in an illegal gold mine on the Indonesian island of Java are believed to have died, a local rescue official said on Sunday, as search efforts entered their fifth day with little progress.
Unlicensed mines – many of which fail to adhere to basic safety measures – are common in Southeast Asia’s mineral-rich archipelago and accidents are frequent.
Workers were digging inside a 60-meter (200-foot) deep hole in the village of Pancurendang in Central Java on Tuesday night when water suddenly flooded the illegal mine.
Rescuers had deployed water pumps around the clock and worked to dam a nearby river in a frantic attempt to drain water from the mining shaft, but it remained flooded on Sunday.
“It’s already the fifth day. We are waiting for the bad news that the victims are dead,” the head of the local search and rescue agency, Adah Sudarsa, told reporters on Sunday.
Sudarsa said the rescue effort would continue until Tuesday in hopes of recovering the bodies of the miners, who have not yet been found.
Authorities had planned to deploy divers to find the miners, but local rescue official Priyo Prayudha Utama told AFP that “it was not possible” because the mine shaft was too narrow.
Most of the trapped miners had moved from West Java to mine in the area, police said.
On Friday, police charged four people with allegedly operating the mine without a permit.
The suspects, including one who remains at large, face up to five years in prison and 100 billion rupees ($6.6 million) in fines.
In 2021, six people were killed on the island of Sulawesi after an illegal gold mine collapsed.
At least 16 people were killed two years earlier when another illegal gold mine on the island collapsed and buried workers.
In 2016, 11 miners died after a landslide engulfed an illegal gold mine in Sumatra’s Jambi province.
