Indonesia quarry collapse leaves at least 17 dead and eight missing in West Java

# Indonesia quarry collapse leaves at least 17 dead and eight missing in West Java

Rescuers kept searching the Gunung Kuda quarry after a collapse in Cirebon district killed workers and trapped others under rubble.

By NeoTechNews Desk

Rescue crews in Indonesia’s West Java province were still searching a collapsed stone quarry after officials said the death toll had reached at least 17, with eight people still missing. The collapse struck the Gunung Kuda quarry in Cirebon district and left a working site turned into a rescue operation.

According to AP, the victims were trapped when the quarry gave way on Friday, and by Saturday afternoon rescuers had recovered 16 bodies before one of the survivors died in hospital. A dozen other survivors were found alive. Local police chief Sumarni said search crews were being slowed by bad weather, unstable soil and rugged terrain, conditions that made the recovery effort dangerous even after the initial collapse had ended.

The collapse also triggered questions about the site itself. West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi said he had visited the quarry before his election and considered it dangerous. In a video statement on Instagram, he said it had not met safety standards, and on Friday he ordered the quarry shut along with four other similar sites in the province. Police were questioning six people, including the quarry owner, while investigators tried to determine why the slope failed.

The disaster fits a wider pattern in Indonesia, where illegal and informal extraction sites often operate with limited oversight and unsafe working conditions. AP noted that such sites can expose workers to landslides, flooding and tunnel collapses, and that processing some materials can also involve toxic mercury or cyanide. That larger pattern matters because the quarry collapse was not only a sudden accident but also a reminder of the hazards facing laborers in small-scale extraction work.

CTV News’ initial report said at least 10 people were dead and six were missing, showing how the toll rose as rescue crews reached deeper into the debris. The updated AP account makes clear that the final figure was still moving as the search continued. What remained unchanged was the central fact: workers were buried in a quarry collapse, and authorities were still trying to account for everyone who had been on site.

The collapse also brought into focus how dependent many quarry workers are on sites that can be shut down only if regulators enforce standards quickly enough to matter. Mulyadi’s public comments suggested the danger was visible before the collapse, but the quarry remained active until the disaster forced action. That sequence matters because it turns the event from a sudden natural hazard into a case study in regulatory failure and workplace exposure.

For rescuers, the terrain added another layer of risk. Unstable ground can shift again after the first collapse, which is why bad weather and rugged conditions are not just logistical inconveniences but direct threats to the people searching for the missing. The death toll may still have been rising while the operation continued, but even the verified minimum already made the quarry one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the region in recent memory.