DAVAO CITY – Rescuers were searching Monday for a group of miners after a tunnel collapsed in Compostela Valley’s Monkayo town, reports said on Monday.
It said four people were killed in the tragedy that occurred in the gold-rush mountain village called Depot over the weekend. Conflicting reports said as many as 5 people were trapped inside the tunnel.
It was not immediately known why the tunnel collapsed, but illegal gold mining activities continue unabated in Monkayo.
The province Philippine province had been the site of deadly mining tragedy in the past years and despite the dangers and hazards pose by illegal mining, the government failed miserably to control the nefarious activities.
In May 2009, at least 5 dozen people had died and many more injured after mining tunnels collapsed due to landslides triggered by heavy rains in Pantukan town. And this was followed by several more landslides during that year that buried miners in tunnels in the towns of Maco and Monkayo.
Two years later, more than two dozen miners were also buried alive in landslides that hit the village of Panganason also in Pantukan town where small-scale miners erected tunnels in mountain slopes. (Mindanao Examiner)
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