Four killed in Indonesia tunnel collapse

Four workers were killed while many others were still missing after a mine tunnel of a subsidiary of US mining giant Freeport-McMoRan in Indonesia collapsed, local media said Wednesday.

The incident was reported from eastern Indonesia's Papua Province early Tuesday, according to Xinhua news agency.

"Fourteen workers have been evacuated from the tunnel until Wednesday morning with four men dead," Tito Karnavian, chief of the Papua Regional Police Command, was quoted by Indonesia's news portal metrotvnews.com as saying.

At least 40 workers were in the tunnel when the accident happened at 7:30 a.m. local time Tuesday and the cause of the accident is still unknown, it said.

Production at Freeport Indonesia's Grasberg mine where the tunnel collapsed was not expected to be significantly affected, according to local media.

The Grasberg mine, which started its production in the 1970s, holds the world's biggest gold and second-biggest copper deposit. It employs more than 20,000 people.