Rescuers battle weather and conditions to find missing after storm kills six people at remote mine.
Torrential rains have forced Indonesian rescuers to suspend their efforts to find 14 missing gold miners after a landslide in the remote east of the country killed six of their colleagues.
Officials reported on Monday that the weather and difficult terrain were hindering the search for the workers in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua.
Torrential rain triggered a landslide and floods late on Friday near a small mine run by residents in the Arfak Mountains in West Papua province, Abdul Muhari, a spokesperson for the National Agency for Disaster Management, told the Reuters news agency.
The storm swept away temporary shelters used by the miners, killing at least six people and injuring four, he reported.
“The floodwaters from upstream hit a temporary housing area of traditional gold miners at around 9:00 pm (1200 GMT),” Muhari said in a statement.
The search to locate the missing miners has been hampered by “damaged roads and mountainous tracks as well as bad weather,” said Yefri Sabaruddin, the head of a team of 40 rescuers, including police and military officials.
He noted that it took 12 hours to travel to the site from the nearest town.
Authorities said they plan to resume their search for the missing on Tuesday.
Tricky regulation
Unlicensed mines are common across the mineral-rich Southeast Asian archipelago nation, where abandoned sites attract locals who hunt for leftover gold ore without proper safety equipment.
That leaves them open to accidents as operations located in remote areas and in difficult conditions make it hard for the authorities to regulate them.
There was no official indication of the mine’s legal status. Sabaruddin stressed that the focus is on evacuating victims.
Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, typically from November to April.
A landslide caused by heavy rains at an illegal gold mine in West Sumatra in September killed 13 people and injured 12.
In July, at least 27 people were killed in a landslide near an illegal gold mine on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.