Agadir – More than 100 people have died after an artisanal gold mine collapsed in western Central African Republic (CAR), local officials and aid workers said Wednesday, as rescue teams continued efforts to recover victims and search for survivors.
The collapse occurred Tuesday afternoon in the village of Zamboye, about 50 kilometers from Baboua and near the border with Cameroon. Local reports said a landslide buried miners working at the site.
Gervais Ganagoroh, a Red Cross volunteer involved in the relief efforts, told the Associated Press that more than 100 bodies had been recovered from the site. A senior official at a local mining association also confirmed the toll to Reuters.
A local public prosecutor said several people remained trapped beneath the earth following the collapse, without providing an exact number of fatalities.
A second prosecutor in Baboua said the incident was believed to have been caused by the collapse of several underground tunnels where miners were working.
“The ground completely collapsed and buried people,” miner Cedric Mbango told AFP, describing the incident as “catastrophic.”
Rescue teams were working to retrieve bodies and search for possible survivors. The miners are believed to have included nationals of both CAR and Cameroon, with authorities in Cameroon’s Eastern region confirming that at least three of its citizens had been identified among the victims.
Regional Governor Grégoire Mvongo told state-owned radio that he was working closely with Central African authorities to address the aftermath of the tragedy.
“Finding them alive would be a miracle,” he said, adding that the community was “saddened and heartbroken” by the deaths of young people who had gone to the mine in search of income to support their families.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, while the exact number of people present at the mine when it collapsed remains unknown.
Local reports said at least 40 people have died in separate mining incidents in CAR this year alone, highlighting the persistent safety risks facing workers in the country’s artisanal mining sector.
