Landslide in Indonesia’s Morowali nickel hub kills one, halts operations

A landslide has hit a mine waste zone at a nickel processing hub managed by PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) on the island of Sulawesi, IMIP’s spokesperson Dedy Kurniawan said on Thursday, killing one worker and halting operations.

The landslide on Wednesday occurred in a tailings area run by an IMIP tenant called PT QMB, and was suspected to have been caused by soft soils. It sweptaway excavators and bulldozers along the way, Dedy said.

Operations at the tailings zone were halted as of Thursday, Dedy told Reuters.

One local contractor was killed by the landslide, Dedy said, adding that no one was missing.

Authorities are currently investigating the incident.

PT IMIP is the largest nickel-processing hub in resource-rich Indonesia and has over 50 tenants, mainly makers of nickel products used in stainless steel and EV battery materials, according to the company website.

Chinese steelmaker Tsingshan Holding Group is among PT IMIP’s shareholders.

QMB New Energy Materials is an Indonesia-based nickel and cobalt joint venture led by China’s GEM. QMB was forced to suspend almost all production in March 2025 after a deadly landslide buried four workers under nickel mine waste.

Neither Tsingshan nor GEM responded immediately to requests for comment.

(By Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Editing by David Stanway)