2 miners killed, 2 others still missing in tunnel accident in South Cotabato gold rush area

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Feb. 26 – Two mining workers were confirmed dead while two others were still missing after they were reportedly suffocated inside a mine tunnel at the gold rush village of Kematu in T’boli, South Cotabato late Thursday afternoon.

Ramon Ponce de Leon, South Cotabato environmental management office chief, said Friday local rescuers recovered the remains of two miners Thursday evening inside a gold mining tunnel located in Sitio Tunnel in Barangay Kematu, several hours after the incident was first reported at around 5 p.m.

He said the victims, who were identified as siblings Toto and Gary Olin, were reportedly suffocated inside the mine tunnel after a sudden power failure reportedly cut off the tunnel’s oxygen supplies.

“Because of the brownout, the machine providing oxygen to the workers inside the tunnel stopped functioning,” said Ponce de Leon, citing an initial investigation conducted by their personnel.

As of Friday morning, he said rescuers were still trying to locate the two missing miners who were identified as siblings Boy and Adel Olin.

The entire province of South Cotabato has been experiencing rotational brownouts that last for five to six hours daily due to a load shedding scheme implemented by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

The long brownouts were blamed on the drastic decline of the generating capacities of the National Power Corporation’s hydroelectric plants due to the El Nino-triggered reduction of the water levels of Lake Lanao and the Agus and Pulangi river systems.

Meantime, Senior Insp. Marvin Dua-Dua, T’boli police chief, said they will resume the rescue operations Friday morning for the trapped miners, who were believed entrenched deep into the “blazing tunnel.”

He said the two missing miners were also possibly suffocated by the gaseous emissions inside the tunnel similar to what happened to their two other siblings.

“We’re doing everything to rescue them the soonest possible time,” he said.

Dua-Dua said their initial investigation showed that the mine tunnel is reportedly owned by a certain Edgardo Madiskay and its operations are being financed by businessman Elmer Cabradilla of Alabel, Sarangani Province.

Ponce de Leon said they will conduct another investigation on the incident to determine the real cause of the death of the two mining workers.

He said they have initially coordinated with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to help look into the incident.

“We want to know what really happened. The initial report cited toxic fumes emanating from the tunnel as the cause of the accident but we also want to check if portions of the tunnel had collapsed prior to it,” he added.(PNA)

FFC/AVE 

Source:

http://balita.ph/2010/02/26/2-miners-killed-2-others-still-missing-in-tu...

Senior Insp. Marvin Dua-Dua, chief of police in T'boli, said they would do everything to locate Boy and Olin. 

For her part, Bai Zorahayda Taha, regionaldirector of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, said she had instructed her staff to provide assistance to the victims' family. 

In T'boli, other residents are engaged in sluice mining where they move the soil for easier extraction of gold particles by pouring large volumes of water until the soil washes down to box- type diggings called sluice boxes. 

The boxes have screens that are used to separate the fine gold particles from the soil and pebbles.

The miners gather the accumulated gold particles, place them in a container and extract the gold with a pan using mercury. 

The area where the incident happened is not far from Tampakan town, also in the province where SMI, a mining company, is exploring gold and copper deposits in the boundaries of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Davao Del Sur. 

The company is partly owned by Australian-listed firm Xstrata Plc., a subsidiary of the Switzerland-based mining group Xstrata. The Tampakan mine, which SMI has been developing, is Xstrata's largest copper development project in Asia. 

It is considered one of Southeast Asia's largest untapped copper mineral resources with an estimated yield of 11.6 million tons of copper and 14.6 million ounces of gold. 

Source:http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=553139&publicationSubCategoryId=200