The death toll from Indonesian landslide at an illegal gold mine on Sulawesi island has risen to 23, with the toll expected to rise.
According to rescue workers who have been digging through mounds of mud and rubble to search for missing people, at least 35 people were still missing. Hundreds of rescue workers were deployed, as well as a helicopter, to the area located more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta.
This is not the first time that a landslide has resulted in several deaths and destruction of property. In 2014, at least 18 people were killed after a mudslide set off by torrential rains rushed down hills into a village in central Indonesia and swept away scores of homes.
At least 90 people went missing at the time while about 105 houses were swept away by the landslide in Jemblung village in Central Java province’s Banjarnegara district. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, was quoted at the time as saying that hundreds of people, including police, soldiers and residents, were digging through the debris with their bare hands, shovels and hoes for 100 people still missing.
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This May, at least 15 people died after landslides and flooding in South Sulawesi province swept away dozens of houses and damaged roads. A landslide in the same province a month before killed 20 people.
Unlicensed mines are common across the mineral-rich Southeast Asian archipelago, where abandoned sites attract locals who hunt for leftover gold ore without proper safety equipment. A quarter of the more than 8,600 unlicensed mines are gold mines.
The landslide hit a remote village in Bone Bolango district of Gorontalo province on Sunday following intense rains that engulfed the miners and nearby residents.
Rescue agency official Ida Bagus Nyoman Ngurah Asrama told the AFP news agency that 66 people survived.
More than 270 people, including police officers and soldiers, have been deployed as part of the search and rescue operation over the last two days.
Afifuddin Ilahude, a local rescue official, said the authorities sent in rescuers with heavy equipment in an operation hampered by heavy rains, unstable soil and rugged, forested terrain.
“With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll is likely to rise,” Ilahude said, adding that sniffer dogs were being mobilised.
National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said the rains, which pounded the mountainous district, triggered a landslide and broke an embankment, causing floods up to the roofs of houses in five villages in Bone Bolango.
Story was adapted from Aljazeera.
