Four Freeport Miners Found Dead

Timika (Antara Bali) - Four miners of PT Freeport Indonesia were found dead in Big Gossan underground mining in Tembagapura, Papua, on Tuesday night.

Contacted from Timika, Tembagapura police spokesman Adjunct Commissioner Sudirman said 14 miners were reported to have been trapped in the underground mining but rescue workers as of Wednesday morning rescued 10 of them and found four others dead.

"The rescue workers find four miners dead and 10 others alive and rushed them to Tembagapura hospital for treatment," Sudirman said, adding that the rescue effort had been made since Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning.

He said that based on list from Freeport, around 40 miners were trapped in the ruins of the underground mining at 8.15 am local time on Tuesday when they were taking Annual Refresher Class but they could manage to escape.

The collapse of PT Freeport underground mine this time was the biggest with the higher number of victims in the past few years after a similar incident at the Grassberg in 2003. (*/DWA)