Team probes RP mine deaths claim

Team probes RP mine deaths claim

ZAMBOANGA CITY (DPA): An eight-member team from the Philippine environment department started an investigation yesterday into claims that 80 gold miners were killed in a tunnel collapse -- not six as the government maintains.

"The team will do a geological hazard assessment and check all the landslide-prone areas of Mount Diwalwal," said engineer Constancio Paye, chief of the department's Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau in the southern island of Mindanao. "We would like to know the truth."

The probe was triggered by lawyer and tribal leader Melanio Andresan, who said in a letter to President Fidel Ramos that the low casualty figure of mostly tribal mine workers stemmed from a deliberate code of silence imposed by the operators.

Makeshift shafts and tunnels collapsed in a landslide on Dec. 26. Initial reports said rescue workers who frantically cleared the rubble, boulders and timber saved 28 injured men while six died. The search for other survivors was terminated last week.