Disaster struck an illegal gold mine on the Central African Republic’s border with Cameroon, where a landslide has killed at least 100 people, local sources told AFP.
Rescue teams were still searching on Wednesday after the collapse at the Zamboye mining site, about 50 kilometres from the town of Baboua, which occurred on Tuesday afternoon.
Several local sources said the death toll was around 100, with many more injured in what has become the latest in a string of deadly accidents in the mineral-rich country.
“At this stage it’s difficult for us to establish a formal toll,” Baboua elected official Laurent Ngon Baba told AFP.
At least four of the dead were Cameroonian, according to the Cameroon Tribune.
Survivors were transported to the hospital in Baboua as searches continued at the site.
The Baboua public prosecutor said in a statement that the landslide was believed to have been triggered by “the collapse of several underground tunnels in which miners were operating”, adding that a judicial inquiry had been opened.
Such landslides are a recurring danger at illegal mining sites beyond state oversight in the Central African Republic.
Video posted on social media appeared to show part of the ground at the vast open-pit operation—where hundreds of artisanal miners work—shearing away and sweeping down, burying people in its path.
Cedric Mbango, a miner at the site, called the scene “catastrophic”.
“The ground completely collapsed and buried people,” he told AFP.
Across the border, Gregoire Mvongo, governor of Cameroon’s eastern region, said on state broadcaster CRTV radio that authorities were “working in close collaboration with our Central African colleagues to deal with the aftermath of this tragedy”.
The Zamboye collapse follows another deadly incident in June, when a similar cave-in killed several dozen people at the Be-Mbari gold mining site, also near the Cameroon frontier.
In mid-March, a landslide killed seven at a mine in the village of Ngourroum in the west of the Central African Republic.
In February, another 20 people died in Gordi, in the northeast.
