After flash floods surged into a pit where they were looking for gold on Saturday, fourteen miners were reported missing and presumed dead in Burundi.
According to Nicodeme Ndahabonyimana, the local administrator, heavy rain in the Mabayi commune in northwest Burundi on Friday caused torrents of water from a swollen river to gushe into a pit mine where they were mining.
According to Ndahabonyimana, the 14 miners “did not have time to get out of the holes.”
There was still a hope of discovering the trapped miners alive, he added, but efforts were being made to pump water out of the mine shafts to rescue their dead.
Although many mines in Burundi are unregulated, the country is rich in rare earths, precious metals, and gold.
Four miners were killed in Mabayi working at an unregulated mine just last year, Ndahabonyimana said.
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In May 2019, nine miners were killed and another 20 injured when an unregulated coltan mine collapsed following torrential rains in northern Burundi.
Such incidents occur regularly across the country but local authorities are discouraged from reporting them, civil society activists say.
In 2021, Burundi’s government announced it was suspending the operations of several international mining companies, complaining that it was not getting its fair share of income from the country’s mineral wealth.
Story adapted from ABC News
