30 illegal gold miners are feared dead after a mine collapsed at Chipindo municipality in Angola.
State media confirmed that at least 30 people died after a mine collapsed at Chipindo municipality in Angola’s south-west Huíla Province.
Radio Nacional de Angola (RNA) reported that the tragedy happened at Chiwele locality where the illegal gold miners were at work. RNA stated:
The prospectors were extracting gold in the mine when it collapsed due the ground humidity.”
As the second most populous after Luanda, Huíla Province, about 904km south of Luanda, is endowed with mineral resources that tend to attract people from all parts of the world. Some of the minerals found in Huíla Province include gold, diamonds, manganese, kaolin, iron, black granite, and mica.
Cases of mines collapsing and trapping prospectors are becoming more and more rampant. January this year, at least 14 people were killed when a nearby hill collapsed on a mine in eastern Rwamagana district in Rwanda. The accident came off the back of another mining accident that occurred in 2017 in the same area. That time there were no casualties and the government mandated the British firm that owned the mines to put in place more necessary safety precautions. These cases are not limited to East Africa. Last month, at least 23 illegal miners were trapped and killed in Zimbabwe after shafts and underground tunnels they were working in were flooded by water from a nearby dam wall that collapsed.
Photo credit: Agence France Presse
