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DPA
Kinshasa
At least 50 miners were killed when a gold mine collapsed in the town of Kamituga in eastern Congo, Deputy Mayor Ngandu Kamundala confirmed on Saturday.
The gold mine in South Kivu province collapsed on Friday, he said.
Ordinary citizens were searching the collapsed pit using pickaxes, their bare hands and any other tools they could find to move rocks and debris.
“Their bodies are buried under the rubble, there is no chance that there will be any survivors,” Kamundala said.
After heavy rain on Thursday and Friday, the nearby Njali river burst its banks, sending water and mud down into the mining pit, he said.
The pit is less than a kilometre away from the river.
The town decreed “two days of mourning and anger” to “not only mourn our compatriots but also denounce the precarious conditions in which all the miners work,” said the deputy mayor.
Kamituga became a town last year after activity around the gold mine increased. The victims are artisanal miners, many of them impoverished young men working with minimal equipment on a freelance basis.
Jason Aruni, a representative of the town’s artisanal miners, compared the Kamituga gold pits to a “cemetery where many people are buried regularly without sanctions afterwards.” The governor of South Kivu, Theo Kasi, issued a statement decrying “the tragic death of 50 people, mostly young people.” Kamituga is nearly 200 kilometres west of the provincial capital Bukavu.
Artisanal miners have become major mineral suppliers to international companies, usually through intermediaries. With outdated tools and little to no safety equipment, mines that they work at are often the scene of fatal accidents.
Kinshasa
At least 50 miners were killed when a gold mine collapsed in the town of Kamituga in eastern Congo, Deputy Mayor Ngandu Kamundala confirmed on Saturday.
The gold mine in South Kivu province collapsed on Friday, he said.
Ordinary citizens were searching the collapsed pit using pickaxes, their bare hands and any other tools they could find to move rocks and debris.
“Their bodies are buried under the rubble, there is no chance that there will be any survivors,” Kamundala said.
After heavy rain on Thursday and Friday, the nearby Njali river burst its banks, sending water and mud down into the mining pit, he said.
The pit is less than a kilometre away from the river.
The town decreed “two days of mourning and anger” to “not only mourn our compatriots but also denounce the precarious conditions in which all the miners work,” said the deputy mayor.
Kamituga became a town last year after activity around the gold mine increased. The victims are artisanal miners, many of them impoverished young men working with minimal equipment on a freelance basis.
Jason Aruni, a representative of the town’s artisanal miners, compared the Kamituga gold pits to a “cemetery where many people are buried regularly without sanctions afterwards.” The governor of South Kivu, Theo Kasi, issued a statement decrying “the tragic death of 50 people, mostly young people.” Kamituga is nearly 200 kilometres west of the provincial capital Bukavu.
Artisanal miners have become major mineral suppliers to international companies, usually through intermediaries. With outdated tools and little to no safety equipment, mines that they work at are often the scene of fatal accidents.
