Rescuers said they could hear the voices of some of those trapped in makeshift mining shafts in a muddy hillside in the Bolaang Mongondow area of North Sulawesi province and believed many were still alive.
JAKARTA - Indonesian officials said on Wednesday dozens of rescuers were using spades and ropes to dig out around 45 people who were feared buried by the collapse of an illegal gold mine on the island of Sulawesi that killed at least one person.“We are able to detect that many of them are still alive because we can hear their voices, as there are some places where air is getting in and out and there are gaps in the mud,” Abdul Muin Paputungan of Indonesia’s disaster agency said by phone.
“Evacuation efforts continued through the night because of the number of people estimated to be buried,” he said.The issue of mining safety was thrust back into global prominence this year after a dam in Brazil holding back mining waste burst, killing more than 300 people.Resource-rich Indonesia has a patchy record on mining safety, particularly small-scale unlicensed mines. At least five people were killed in the same part of Sulawesi last year after an illegal mine collapsed during heavy rain.
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