2 found alive in collapsed mine
BAYOMBONG, NUEVA VIZCAYA—Initially thought to be dead, two small-scale miners were pulled out alive from a collapsed tunnel at the mountainous village of Runruno of Quezon town in Nueva Vizcaya.
However, the search and rescue effort that entered its second day on Wednesday, cost the life of one of the volunteers.
John Philip Guinihid, who volunteered to enter the 300-deep tunnel, died during the rescue mission. He was with Johnny Ayudan, brother of one of the missing miners, Lipihon Ayudan. The remains of Lipihon were later found.
Guinihid and Johnny entered the tunnel but they later fell unconscious due to the lack of oxygen, authorities said.
Pastor Mario dela Cruz of the Philippine Bethel Church, Inc., who was also one of the volunteer rescuers, reported to the police that the lack of oxygen also caused some rescuers, aside from the small scale miners inside the tunnel to become dizzy and lose consciousness and were unable to get out.
Johnny Ayudan was rescued alive from inside the tunnel before the body of his brother Lipihon was found and retrieved.
Search continued on Wednesday for Daniel Segundo Paggana, 47, and Florencio Indopia, 63, who entered the tunnel along with the three others on June 23. Both are residents of Runruno.
Senior Fire Officer 1 Analyn Mallari, of the Quezon Bureau of Fire Protection office and head of the incident command center conducting the search and retrieval operation, confirmed that two of the five miners initially all reported to have died were rescued alive.
Alfred Bilibli, a resident of Maddela, Quirino province, was pulled out of the tunnel unconscious but alive at 3:46 p.m. on Tuesday. Over five hours later, another Maddela resident, Jovan Bantiyan, was also rescued in a similar condition.
Both were rushed to the hospital and are now recovering from their injuries.
Local police initially declared all five miners as dead after a Runruno resident reported to have discovered the bodies of the trapped miners, including those of Bilibli and Bantiyan.
Suffocate
According to an initial police investigation, the group had been conducting illegal small-scale mining activities within the concession area of FCF Minerals Co., a publicly listed gold mining company operating in Runruno and a wholly-owned subsidiary of London-listed Metals Exploration Plc.
Investigators believed the miners were trapped and likely suffocated due to lack of oxygen when they were roughly 300 meters underground.
Rescue and retrieval efforts have been hampered by the hazardous conditions inside the collapsed tunnel, which is filled with toxic gas and severely oxygen-depleted air, authorities said.
Personnel from the Bureau of Fire Protection, Quezon Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, Philippine National Police, Philippine Red Cross and FCF Minerals Co. have been deployed to assist in the ongoing operation.
Barangay Runruno has long been known for unregulated mining. In 2021, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources led a multiagency crackdown on illegal small-scale operations in the area.
The campaign resulted in the dismantling of equipment within the Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement zone of FCF Minerals—an area not yet developed and ineligible to be declared a “Minahang Bayan,” or legally designated small-scale mining site.
