JAKARTA (Reuters) -Torrential rains forced a halt on Monday to Indonesia’s search for 14 missing in its easternmost region of Papua after a landslide killed six workers at a gold mine and injured four, officials said.
The rains had triggered Friday’s landslide, which hit a small mine run by residents of the Arfak mountains of West Papua province, said Abdul Muhari, the spokesperson of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency.
Authorities will resume on Tuesday their search for those missing after the disaster, which engulfed temporary shelters used by miners.
The search effort was hampered by “damaged roads and mountainous tracks as well as bad weather”, Yefri Sabaruddin, the head of a team of 40 rescuers, including police and military officials, who retrieved five bodies, told Reuters.
Travelling to the site required 12 hours from the nearest town, he said.
Monday’s tally was updated from an earlier figure of one dead and 19 missing.
Small-scale and illegal mining has often led to accidents in Indonesia, where mineral resources are located in remote areas in conditions difficult for authorities to regulate.
The number of casualties could rise.
At least 15 people died in the collapse of an illegal gold mine in West Sumatra province last September after a landslide caused by heavy rains.
Another landslide in a gold mine on Sulawesi island killed at least 23 people in July last year.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Clarence Fernandez)
