Search for 3 miners ends as bodies pulled out of Vizcaya tunnel
BAYOMBONG, NUEVA VIZCAYA—Retrieval operations in a collapsed mining tunnel in the village of Runruno in Quezon town ended on Thursday after the bodies of three miners trapped there were recovered, the team overseeing the recovery said.
The fatalities were identified as Daniel Segundo Paggana, 47; Florencio Indopia, 63; and Lapihon Ayudan, 56—all residents of Barangay Runruno.
Runruno village chief John Babliin said Paggana’s body was found around 11 p.m. on Wednesday about 300 meters (984.25 feet) deep inside the collapsed tunnel. The bodies of Indopia and Ayudan were recovered shortly after midnight.
A fourth fatality, volunteer rescuer John Philip Guinihid, died from suffocation while assisting in the retrieval efforts.
Another rescuer, Johnny Aydin—brother of one of the deceased miners—survived after briefly losing consciousness inside the tunnel.
Earlier, two other miners, Alfred Dulnuan Bilbili and Joval Bantiyan, were found unconscious inside the tunnel. They were taken to a local hospital and were reported to be recovering.
“We suffered severe headaches, and some rescuers fell unconscious, but we pushed on,” Mario dela Cruz, a local pastor and among the volunteers, told local police.
The rescue and retrieval operations involved coordinated efforts from villagers, firefighters, the police, personnel from the FCF Minerals Corp. and teams from the municipal disaster response office.
According to police, the group of miners had been engaged in illegal small-scale mining activities within the compound of FCF Minerals, a publicly listed gold mining company operating in Runruno and a wholly owned subsidiary of London-listed Metals Exploration Plc.
