Eighteen people, including two women, died after an illegal gold mine collapsed in West Kalimantan in Indonesia.
The accident occurred at around 14:00 p.m. local time Saturday (0700 GMT) at Bengkayang district, when the 18 people were working underground, Ali Mahfud, an official at the national disaster management and mitigation agency, told.
National Army personnel were deployed to the scene after the accident, but help came too late to save the victims due to the remote location of the gold mine.
The bodies of the deceased were recovered late Saturday night.
Illegal gold mining has surged in Indonesia and accidents and fatalities are common.
Indonesian police and government officials are now trying to determine what caused the landslides that caused the mine to collapse.
In July of this year, a landslide killed nine men at an illegal gold mine in the Papua province.
Small-scale and illegal mining is a flash point for conflicts and accidents in Indonesia, where mineral resources are often situated in remote and protected forest areas that are difficult for the government to regulate.
The collapse occurred on Saturday at 11 a.m. but the rescue agency was not notified until evening, Leonardus Sabar Umbara, officer in charge at the West Kalimantan rescue headquarters in Pontianak, told Reuters.
A rescue team reached the site late on Saturday and found 18 victims, 16 men and two women. Fifteen have been identified. "Local people are reluctant to report incidents like this as many of them are engaged in illegal mining," Umbara said.
People in the area were not sure how many other miners may have been trapped, but television station Metro TV said there were up to 500 workers at the site on Saturday.
A similar collapse in the same area killed nine people several years ago, Umbara said.
Monday 06 October 2014
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en/mineweb-gold-news?oid=255435&sn=Detail
http://www.ibtimes.com/least-18-dead-illegal-gold-mine-collapses-indonesia-many-feared-trapped-1699506
