By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ and PERCY A OSTONAL
FIRST, a deafening boom, followed by a roar of
water rampaging down the mountain slope, flooding a nearby tributary until it
slammed into a busy tricycle-trodden road below.
Minutes later, 10 houses along its path were seen
crushed, five of them totally.
The time: about 10am.
The day, Friday the 13th.
The culprit: A failed toxic tailings pond at the
mine site of Johson Gold Mining Corporation (JGMC) at Baranggay Bagong-Bayan on
the outskirts of Jose Panganiban.
Luckily, no life was lost from the 10 wrecked
houses, five of them “barong-barong” owned by farmer-gold panner families, as
the occupants were away when the tragedy struck.
Locals who witnessed the deluge of the toxic gold
tailings said it had dragged down with it “a shanty, uprooted trees and
vegetation and boulders”, indicating the intensity of force the toxic flood had
packed.
Baranggay officials had immediately traced the
source of the toxic flood from a cluster of mine tailings ponds at the nearby
campsite of JGMC at the former San Mauricio mining tenement.
The collapsed dam later identified by the miner
as “Tailings Pon E” was believed by the residents to have released big volume
of cyanide-laden mine tailings into the environment.
The damaged dam, which was one of the five
containment facilities at the mine camp, was being prepared for decommissioning
along with four others labeled as “A to D”.
A new pond labeled as “Tails Pond F” is being
developed, JGMC said.
Municipal officials were investigating the
incident.
JGMC Vice-President Jason A Marcelo returned
MWBuzz earlier call to confirm the incident.
“Five houses along the path of the flood were
totally destroyed while five others were partially affected,” Marcelo said.
However, there was no casualty, he said.
Marcelo said the flooding had reached the main
road but a clean-up job was immediately carried out to prevent the toxic wastes
from spilling further into a wider populated area.
He said that a wall section
of a tailings pond E collapsed and released into the environment waste water
and sediments.
“It has been observed that during heavy rains,
some scouring of backfilled earth materials caused the thinning of the top
embankment of this portion, which caused the mudslide,” Marcelo said in a
follow statement sent to MWBuzz.
Marcelo said the mine’s
tailing ponds with a total of 3.5 hectares were designed by experts and built
under their close supervision.
This facility is one of the major requirements by
the government before JGMC was allowed to operate.
“We have repaired the damaged wall,” Marcelo said
in a statement emailed to MWBuzz to respond to some queries the online
newsletter sent to the company official.
It was not immediately known how long the
affected water tributary and the immediate farmland and vegetation would remain
toxic considering the massive volume of cyanide-treated waste that flooded down
the mountain slope.
But local residents said that whatever life that
used to teem in the water tributary such as shrimps and edible snails have been
wiped out.
They also said that water springs along the
contaminated tributary could no longer be used as source of drinking water.
Marcelo said that although there were silt materials
from higher suspended solids along the creek, “no fish kill was observed along
the shoreline of the bay”.
The Mines and GeoSciences Bureau has been
informed of the incident while the municipal government is investigating what
exactly caused the tailings dam to collapse.
Earlier, Marcelo said his company had taken
safety measures to contain its mine tailings.
Marcelo made the assurance to allay fears of the
public on the alleged harm that its wastes could do to the mining camp’s
surroundings, particularly the nearby tributaries that flow down to the
Mambulao Bay.
Email the blogger: ahernandez@thenational.com.pg and alfredophernandez@y7mail.com
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