2 Miners Died Buried In Sand In Cirebon, 3 Selamat Successfully Avoided

JAKARTA - Two workers were buried by landslides at the illegal excavation C mine site in Argasunya Village, Cirebon City, West Java, Wednesday, June 18.

Cirebon Mayor (Walkot) Effendi Edo said the unfortunate incident occurred at around 08.00 WIB, while five workers were loading sand material from a cliff as high as 20 meters.

"At that time the land suddenly collapsed, so it buried two workers and one unit of a diesel cold truck inside," he said in Cirebon, Wednesday, June 18, which was confiscated by Antara.

According to Edo, of the five workers who were at the location, three managed to save themselves.

"While the other two, namely Dani (26) and Rian (25), did not have time to avoid landslides," he said.

From the information received, he said, at the time of the incident the workers were in routine activities of digging and transporting sand secretly.

Edo emphasized that the C excavation mine in Argasunya, known to have no permits and has been banned from operating for a long time by local governments.

"Usually they come early in the morning, before eight o'clock they start work. This activity is carried out illegally, without permission, and is dangerous," he said.

He said that until this afternoon the process of evacuating victims was still ongoing and the joint team was trying to use heavy equipment, but the terrain around the location was quite unstable and prone to subsequent landslides.

"We are deploying heavy equipment, but we have to look at the condition of the land first. Do not let evacuation efforts be dangerous," he said.

Edo said most of the residents in Argasu had actually stopped mining. However, only a small part are still surviving to carry out illegal mining.

"About 70 to 80 percent of residents have changed professions. Only a few people are still surviving in the mine, and now cause casualties," he said.