JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities warned Monday that up to 100 people could still be trapped and feared dead inside a collapsed illegal gold mine despite a painstaking rescue effort that has so far plucked 19 people alive from the rubble, but also seen nine deaths.
Search teams at the unlicensed mine on Sulawesi island have been hampered by steep terrain, unstable soil and dangerously narrow mining shafts since a landslide caused the accident last Tuesday.
While authorities said the search and rescue effort would continue for another week, they made no mention of continuing efforts to get food and water to any possible survivors.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the number of miners inside the shafts at the time of the accident was still not known as survivors had given varying tallies.
“Some say 30 people, 50, 60 people — even 100 people, because at the time there were many in the main pit (and) ... an unknown number in the smaller ones,” he said in a statement.
Because of the precarious conditions, rescue workers initially had to dig by hand to try to reach any survivors, but relatives of those trapped last week gave permission for heavy-duty machinery to be deployed.
Although mechanized diggers cleared debris from the entrance of one hole on Sunday, they found no more survivors.
The accident happened in the Bolaang Mongondow region of North Sulawesi, where five miners were killed in December after a similar illegal gold mine accident.
Mineral-rich Indonesia has scores of unlicensed mines — many with complete disregard for even the most basic safety procedures.
In 2016, 11 miners died after a mudslide engulfed an illegal gold mine in Sumatra’s Jambi province.
In 2015, 12 people died when a mineshaft collapsed on Java island, and 11 miners died on Sumatra island when a mudslide engulfed a mine in Jambi province.
Up to 100 still feared trapped in Indonesia mine
Up to 100 still feared trapped in Indonesia mine
- Search teams have been hampered by steep terrain, unstable soil and dangerously narrow mining shafts
- Because of the precarious conditions, rescue workers initially had to dig by hand to try to reach any survivors
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
