39,000 dynamites found in abandoned mining site in Sultan Kudarat

SULTAN KUDARAT — Authorities on Saturday recovered 39,000 pieces of powerful nitroglycerin dynamites in an old mining site in Bagumbayan town in Sultan Kudarat.

 

Senior Superintendent Raul Supiter, director of the Sultan Kudarat provincial police, said the dynamites, piled in an abandoned shelter in a copper and ore extraction site in Barangay Sarapinang in Bagumbayan, was first discovered by villagers two days before.  

 

Supiter said an initial on-site verification by probers indicated that a firm named Ippo China Mining Company owned the dynamites.

 

Workers of the mining outfit had left the site several years ago after its owner shut its operation in the area.

 

Supiter said probers still do not know why the firm had stopped its mining activities in Barangay Sarapinang, a hinterland area at the foot of the mineral-rich Daguma mountain range, which also has thick tropical rainforests.

 

He said he had asked barangay officials to collect some dynamite sticks that finders reportedly brought him and kept in their houses.

 

“These are powerful explosives, very harmful if mishandled,” Supiter said.

 

He said their explosives disposal operation in Barangay Sarapinang was assisted by personnel of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion and mining experts from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.