Jakarta, Indonesia Rescue workers dug through tonnes of mud and rubble on Tuesday to search for dozens of missing people after a landslide in an unauthorized gold mining area on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi killed at least 23 people.
More than 100 villagers were digging for gold in the remote hilly village of Bone Bolango on Sunday when tonnes of mud cascaded down from the surrounding hills, burying their makeshift camp, provincial search and rescue chief Heliyanto said.
Rescuers found more bodies on Tuesday in the devastated village, which is home to a gold mine.
His office said 66 villagers had escaped the landslide and 23 had been extracted by rescuers, including 18 injured, and 23 bodies had been recovered, including three women and a four-year-old boy. About 35 more people were still missing, it said.
Didot/AFP/Getty
Heavy rains that have been pounding the mountainous region since Saturday triggered landslides, breached levees and flooded roof-level homes in five villages in Bone Bolango, in Gorontalo province’s mountainous region, said Abdul Muhari, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. Around 300 homes were damaged and more than 1,000 people fled for safety.
Authorities have deployed more than 200 rescue workers, including police and soldiers, using heavy machinery to search for the dead and missing, said Afifuddin Ilafdeh, a local rescue official, but efforts have been hampered by heavy rains, unstable soil and the rugged, forested terrain.
“The death toll is likely to rise as many people are missing and some remote areas remain inaccessible,” Ilafude said, adding that sniffer dogs were being used in the search.
Video released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed rescuers using farm tools and their bare hands to pull muddy bodies from the thick mud, then place them in black bags and take them away for burial.
Didot/AFP/Getty
Indonesia is an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands, with millions of people living in mountainous areas and near floodplains, where seasonal monsoon rains make landslides and flash floods common.
at least 14 deaths in May Heavy rains caused floods and landslides in Luwu district, South Sulawesi, inundating more than 1,000 homes and washing away 42 houses from their foundations.
March, Heavy rains caused floods and landslides An explosion on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has killed at least 19 people and left seven missing, authorities said.
Climate scientists say Climate Change Brought seasonal monsoons across Asia More intense and unpredictable.
Informal mining is also common in Indonesia, providing a precarious livelihood for thousands of people who work under conditions that put them at high risk of serious injury or death. Landslides, floods and tunnel collapses are just some of the dangers miners face. Much of the processing of gold ore involves the use of highly toxic mercury and cyanide, and workers often use little or no protective equipment.
The country’s last major mining-related accident was in April 2022, when a landslide occurred at an illegal traditional gold mine in Mandarin Natal regency, North Sumatra, killing 12 women prospecting for gold.
In February 2019, more than 40 people were buried to death at an illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi when a makeshift wooden structure collapsed due to a landslide and multiple mining pits.
“The better the weather, the more bodies we were able to collect,” said Heriyanto, who, like many Indonesians, goes by just one name.
