"The landslide which occurred on Saturday night hampered the traffic flow between Timika and Tembagapura and until now it could not yet be normalized," PT Freeport Spokesman Ramdani Sirait said on Sunday.
"The landslide occurred on Saturday night at the Hanekam Tunnel," he said.
Mimika Police chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Moch Sagi said the landslide happened at the tunnel which was the longest tunnel in the exploitation areas of the gold mining PT Freeport Indonesia. The tunnel measures 1,000 meters in length.
"I will check it to assure that it will be returned to normal," he said.
He said he had not yet known the causes of the landslide in the tunnel.
A number of Freeport employees who were met at the Gorong-Gorong bus station in Timika on Sunday said that they failed to go to Tembagapura because the road section in the Hanekam Tunnel was blocked with avalanches.
The same also true to employees who were having days off on Sudnay. They were unable to leave Tembagapura to Timika due to the landslide in the tunnel.(*)
(A014/B/R013)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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