A landslide at an illegal gold mine in Indonesia killed at least one person and may have buried dozens more, officials said Wednesday.
Thirteen injured miners were rescued on the island of Sulawesi after the slide, which was set off on Tuesday evening by the collapse of a supporting beam in a hole they were digging, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster management agency.
An estimated one million gold miners work illegally throughout Indonesia, usually using mercury, a hazardous substance, to process their ore.
In some cases, the miners dig tunnels as deep as 300 feet. No safety standards are enforced and mine collapses are not unusual. The miners do not generally keep a record of who is working or how many people are underground at any given time.
Source: The New York Times
