2 miners drown in Camarines Norte town

NAGA CITY, Philippines—Two small-scale miners drowned early on Sunday after seawater rushed into a mining pit they dug close to the shore in the coastal village of Palanas in Paracale, Camarines Norte, where they had been mining for gold, the top police official in the northernmost province of Bicol region said.

Senior Superintendent Joselito Esquivel, Camarines Norte police chief, identified the casualties as Christian Banal and Budo Villanueva (ages yet to be determined by the police), who both drowned about 5 a.m.

Camarines Norte Governor Edgardo Tallado said in a phone interview Sunday that the two victims were engaged in compressor mining, an illegal mining method, in which miners would use air compressors for breathing underwater while searching for gold ores in water-filled mining pits or among the coral reefs under the sea.

In Paracale, 27 kilometers northwest of the capital town of Daet, compressor miners usually operated through offshore floating makeshift mining houses.

The governor said they have been trying to stop this kind of mining activity but some miners have been able to keep the operations going.