Gas poison kills three miners in Itogon tunnel

ITOGON, Benguet – Three small scale miners were successively killed by gas poisoning inside a private mine tunnel here Tuesday at Sitio Fatima, Barangay Ucab.

A police report said the series of incidents happened 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day at mine tunnel owned by victim Rosalino Api-it Narciza, 54.

Other victims were identified as Barry Rimando Api-it, 36 and Santiago Falikao Banganan, 32.

The report said Narciza entered alone his abandoned mine tunnel that morning to take his equipment.

                However, he did not come out prompting Api-it to follow him and see what happened to his uncle but he did not also come out.

A concerned citizen came to know about the incident and a certain Santiago Banganan who just arrived from his private mine tunnel entered said tunnel to rescue the two victims using a blower to remove poisonous gas inside but he did not manage to go out prompting rescuers to use larger blower before entering the tunnel to extract the body of the victims.

The rescuers extracted first the body of Banganan from the tunnel who was declared dead around 3:30 p.m. by Dr. Oliver Guadania.

After several minutes the body of Api-it and Narciza were also extracted and both were declared dead by the same doctor.

After examination, the attending doctor did not find any physical injury

on the body of the victims.

The death of the three is the latest among long list of deaths inside mine tunnels in Itogon.

              Mayor Victorio Palangdan called on small scale miners, mostly unaided by breathing apparatuses, to exercise extra care in their work.