Dozens of Trapped Indonesian Gold Miners Feared Dead as Oxygen Supply Falls

Eight miners had died and 27 had been rescued from the site, as of 12 p.m. Friday local time (12 a.m. ET), according to Arianto. One man had been rescued alive and died on the way to hospital, he added.

Arianto explained that it was hard to confirm exactly how many people remained in the mine as many of the men were not locals.

“We don’t know for sure how many left are still buried because witnesses said (the miners) don’t know well each other, and most of them come from outside the regency,” he said.

Earlier in the rescue mission, dozens of trapped miners could be heard “screaming for help,” disaster management agency officials said.

But it had been hard to reach all those trapped as rescuers had been hampered by unstable ground disturbed by the landslide, Arianto said.

Agus Budianto, landslide mitigation head at the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center, said the landslide had been caused by the opening of the illegal mine.

Locals operating small-scale illegal mines in the area use traditional techniques to dig their shafts, and do not conduct any kind of feasibility study before starting work.

Budianto said the struts supporting the shaft entrance had broken under pressure from the soil above.

It’s amazing that mining as it was in the 1800s is still going on around the world

Recently just visit a couple ghost towns in the Eastbay here where there was thriving mine and communities and still shops going into the ground hundreds of yards and it’s amazing to think that people just dug those with handtools

This year is now to Black diamond mines regional preserve outside of Antioch California

There’s a really interesting and eerie old graveyard up at about 1000 feet with some very interesting inscriptions on the stones dating back to centuries they’re called Rose

This is why underwater cave diving has never appealed to me

It’s a very hard scrabble way of life and prayers to these poor man that are trapped in there to survive

The Black Diamond Mine tour is quite fascinating. Not many people know it, but that part of California was a huge coal mining operation that powered a lot of growing California.

From the 1860s through 1900, five coal mining towns thrived in the Black Diamond area: Nortonville, Somersville, Stewartville, West Hartley, and Judsonville. As the location of California’s largest coal mining operation, nearly four million tons of coal (”black diamonds”) were removed from the earth. Lots of Welch miners worked there and are buried in the cemetery.

The coal mines had a significant impact on California’s economy. By the time operations ceased due to rising production costs and the exploitation of new energy sources, much of California’s economy had been transformed from a rural to an industrial base.

After the coal mines closed, underground mining for sand began in the 1920s near the deserted Nortonville and Somersville townsites. The Somersville mine supplied sand used in glass making by the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company in Oakland which produced silica sand to make jars, bottles, and other glass items. The Nortonville mine supplied the Columbia Steel Works with foundry (casting) sand. More than 1.8 million tons of sand was mined here.

The Hazel-Atlas Mine is open for tour. The coal mines are closed.

A bit further south on Mines Road, there are remnants of the Corral Hollow Coal Mines. About seven different coal mining companies operated there. There was a mine called the “Tesla Coal Mine” named for the same Nikolai Tesla for whom Tesla Motors is named. From 1897 to 1905, over 600,000 tons of coal was produced from the Tesla coal mines. Founder John Treadwell (a rich gold mine owner from Alaska) hired 500 miners and built a company town named Tesla with over 200 buildings. The Lower Mountain Tunnel was renamed Tesla Tunnel No. 1, and became the showcase of the Eureka coal seam for potential investors. Treadwell wanted to electrify San Francisco with his coal, hence naming the mine and town “Tesla.”

Unfortunately all the Corral Hollow towns and mines are gone. All you can see are occasional tailings piles. The total coal mined from Corral Hollow was probably less than one million tons, a fraction of what was mined at Black Diamond.

Sure. Local history is great stuff. There's a lot of lost and forgotten East Bay history.