The bodies of ten miners have been recovered, and further ten are missing, following a landslide in the remote Arfak Mountains of West Papua Province, Indonesia, following a landslide on Friday16 may 2025. The landslide, which occurred at about 9.00pm, and is believed to have been triggered by heavy rains associated with the onset of the southwest monsoon, and struck a camp being used by artisanal gold miners. A further four miners were injured by the event, and rescue efforts are being hampered by the remote location of the site, which is ten hours travel from the nearest town, and ongoing heavy rains in the area.
Rescue workers battling floodwaters while recovering a body from a mining camp hit by a landslide in the emote Arfak Mountains of West Papua Province, Indonesia, on 16 May 2025. Indonesia Search and Rescue Agency/AFP).
Indonesia's large size, mineral richness, and poor population make unlicensed mining a widespread problem in the country, with illegal mines typically dug with hand tools and located in remote locations where authorities are unlikely to spot them (though some such operations are larger and more blatant in nature). Such mines tend to take few health and safety precautions, and are often dug by people with only a limited understanding of the structural geology of the area, making accidents extremely common, in many cases without help ever arriving due to the hidden nature of the mines. Such mines also present an environmental threat, producing waste which is often toxic, and contributing to deforestation, which can destabilise hillslopes, placing the miners at further risk.
Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry seasons, the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.
Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.
West Papua has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven by winds from the South China Sea that lasts from November to February and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean from March to October. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest.
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