At least 10 people are dead and six others are missing after a quarry collapsed in Indonesia, officials have said.
The natural stone quarry in the Cirebon district of the country’s West Java province collapsed on workers on Friday, leaving more than two dozen people trapped in the rubble, according to local police chief Sumarni, who, like many Indonesians, uses a single name.
The bodies of 10 people have been retrieved, according to Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for Indonesia’s national disaster management agency.
Rescuers have also pulled more than a dozen injured people from the debris, six of whom were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Search efforts were hampered by unstable soil that risked further slides and were suspended on Friday evening due to visibility.
The search is set to resume early Saturday, with several excavators and trucks deployed to clear rubble and find the six people who are still missing.
“Authorities are still investigating the cause of the collapse, and we have been questioning the owner and workers of the quarry,” Sumarni said.
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West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi said he visited the mine before he was elected in late 2024 and identified that it was at risk of collapsing, but he “didn’t have any capacity to stop it” at the time.
He said he has now closed the collapsed stone quarry and four other similar mines in West Java that are considered to be endangering the environment and lives.
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Illegal or informal mining operations are common in Indonesia, and those working in them face a high risk of injury or death due to landslides, flooding, collapses of tunnels or the use of highly toxic chemicals.
Last year, at least 15 people were killed when a landslide triggered by torrential rain hit an unauthorised gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island.
