BUKAVU (DR Congo), March 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Fourteen people were killed when a small-scale mine in a tin-rich area of eastern DR
Congo collapsed, local officials said.
The Tuesday incident happened in Niyabibwe, about 100 kilometres north
of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, they said.
Miners had dug a shaft to look for cassiterite, a source of tin, but the
walls caved in after heavy rain.
“The search for survivors began at around 3 am and is ongoing,” senior
administrative official Muhima Kateete said.
“Fourteen bodies have been recovered, and there are nine injured,” he
said.
Delphin Birimbi, head of a local association of NGOs, said the toll was
provisional.
Nine people are in hospital for serious injuries, a health worker said.
Accidents are common and frequently deadly in the Democratic Republic of
Congo’s subsistence mines, where safety is poor and risk-taking high.
Figures indicating the scale of the problem are sketchy, given that many
mines are illegal and remote. — NNN-AGENCIES