Illegal miners enter dangerous zone
Saturday, February 17 2001 - 04:00 AM WIB
Illegal miners operating on the mining site of coal mining company PT Arutmin Indonesia in the Satui area of the Kotabaru district, South Kalimantan had entered a dangerous zone, the local Banjarmasin Post daily reported Saturday. PT Arutmin is a subsidiary of Australian mining giant BHP.
The paper quoted Arutmin mine manager Faisal Firdaus as saying that the illegal miners had entered very close to the company's explosion area.
He said that illegal mining activity was now only around 50 meter away form the explosion area which was very dangerous to the live of the miners.
Faisal added that the company also risk international sanction if it allowed the illegal miners to conduct their activity in a very close range to the explosion area.
"We're facing a dilemma here," he said.
He said that the company had reported this problem to the local authority but so far there had been no response.(*)