28 People Found Dead after Incident at Freeport Mine

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Twenty eight people have been found dead after an underground training facility at a US-owned PT Freeport Indonesia copper and gold mine in Papua collapsed. "We just received information 14 other bodies were found today," minister of energy and mineral resources Jero Wacik said at a working meeting with House Commission VII here on Tuesday. So, totally 28 had died and 10 others had been injured, five seriously and five others lightly in the incident, he said. He explained the incident occurred during routine training in underground mine safety, involving 40 participants consisting of 25 Papuans and 15 non-Papuans. The training program had just gone for two days when on the second day the room where the training was held suddenly collapsed causing the participants to be buried under debris. "The total number of the victims was 38 because two were absent that day," he said. (*)