Padang, Indonesia – Nine people were killed on May 14 in Indonesia's West Sumatra province after heavy rain triggered the collapse of a 30-meter (100-foot) cliff at an illegal gold mine.
"Three people survived, while nine others who were buried have been recovered deceased," said Susmelawati Rosya, a spokesperson for the West Sumatra province police.
Local officials said miners had ignored repeated warnings to stop work amid sustained torrential rain, and that the high international price of gold continued to draw people into the risky work.
"They were reminded, but they continued with their activities," said Zainal, the head of Guguk village, an ethnic Minangkabau village where the disaster occurred.
On May 13, floodwaters swept away dozens of pontoons used by illegal gold miners near the confluence of three rivers, the Batang Sinamar, Batang Ombilin and Batang Kuantan. A day later, the heavy rain culminated in the fatal landslip at the mining site in Guguk village.
Authorities say illegal mining on the rivers has become widespread in recent years. The local karst landscape is around 350 million years old and is being proposed as a global geopark to UNESCO, the United Nations' science and cultural agency.
Illegal gold mining accidents have repeatedly turned deadly in West Sumatra – and other areas of Sumatra – over the past decade, including landslides and tunnel collapses that buried miners in Solok, South Solok, Sijunjung and West Pasaman districts.
The illegal nature of the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector complicates accurate coverage of deaths in the field.
The West Sumatra office of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Indonesia's largest environmental NGO, has recorded 48 deaths among miners in the last 15 years. However, Tommy Adam, director of Walhi West Sumatra, said the true number could be far higher.
It remains unclear how many illegal miners died when Cyclone Senyar hit northern and western Sumatra in November last year. The ensuing flash floods and landslides in the provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra killed at least 1,178 people and displaced around 1 million others.
At least 267 people were killed in West Sumatra alone, with dozens recorded missing, after the rare tropical cyclone made landfall over the north of Sumatra Island on Nov. 26 and 27.
Gold rush
Shifts in the global economy alongside new geopolitical risks pushed the price of gold above $5,000 per ounce in May 2026, more than three times the price before the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020.
Civil society researchers – and the head of the village where the latest mining tragedy took place in Indonesia – say the high price of gold is likely prompting more young men to seek dangerous and illegal work mining in the forested interior of Sumatra.
"It's become increasingly popular as the price of gold has increased," village chief Zainal said.
Last month, officials at Halim airport in Jakarta, the capital city, seized more than 190 kilos (419 pounds) of gold. Investigators said the seizure, valued at approximately $28 million, may have been sourced from the illegal mining sector.
West Sumatra's energy and mining agency estimates that there are up to 300 illegal mines operating across the province, costing the public purse around 6 trillion rupiah ($360 million).
Officials say the figure, from just one of Indonesia's 38 provinces, illustrates the scale of the challenge facing policymakers and law enforcement.
Earlier this year, the West Sumatra governor said the provincial government would seek to formalize many of these illegal locations by providing pathways to community mining permits from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Between 2022 and 2025, Sijunjung district, where the latest accident occurred, lost 38,000 hectares (93,900 acres) of humid primary forest – an area larger than Las Vegas – according to the satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. The loss amounted to roughly 22% of the district's remaining old-growth forest.
"Victims keep dying," said Tommy Adam, the Walhi lead in West Sumatra, "while illegal mining continues to operate in the open using heavy equipment, destroying protected forest areas, polluting rivers and damaging watersheds."