BANYUMAS (AFP) – Eight people trapped in an illegal gold mine on the Indonesian island of Java are feared dead, a local rescue official said yesterday, as search efforts entered a fifth day with little progress.
Unlicensed mines – many with disregard for basic safety measures – are common across the mineral-rich Southeast Asian archipelago and accidents are frequent.
The workers were digging inside a hole with a depth of 60 metres in Pancurendang village in Central Java last Tuesday evening when water suddenly flooded the illegal mine.
Rescuers had deployed water pumps around the clock and worked to dam a nearby river in a bid to get the water out of the mining shaft but it remained flooded yesterday.
“This is already the fifth day. We expect the bad news that the victims have died,” local search and rescue agency head Adah Sudarsa told reporters yesterday.
