Bangui (GNP): More than 100 people have died after an artisanal Goldmine collapsed in the western Central African Republic, local officials and aid workers confirmed on Wednesday, in one of the deadliest mining disasters the country has seen this year. The collapse occurred on Tuesday afternoon in the village of Zamboye, roughly 50 kilometres from the town of Baboua and close to the border with Cameroon, after a landslide brought down the site where miners were working.
Social media footage appeared to show an avalanche of sand descending on a group of people believed to be miners, burying them beneath the collapse. A statement from a local public prosecutor confirmed that many others were left trapped under the debris, though it did not specify a death toll. Red Cross volunteer Gervais Ganagoroh told the Associated Press that more than 100 bodies had been recovered from the site, a figure a senior official at a local mining association separately confirmed to Reuters.
Authorities in Central African Republic have opened an investigation into the disaster, with a second prosecutor from Baboua stating that the collapse is believed to have resulted from the caving in of several underground tunnels in which miners were operating. Cedric Mbango, a miner present at the site, described the scale of the destruction. Says Mbango, “The ground completely collapsed and buried people,” calling the incident catastrophic.
Rescue teams are continuing efforts to recover victims and search for survivors among the miners, who are believed to include both Central African and Cameroonian nationals. Authorities in Cameroon’s Eastern region confirmed that at least three of its citizens have been identified among the dead, with regional governor Grégoire Mvongo saying he was coordinating closely with counterparts in Central African Republic to manage the aftermath of the disaster.
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Bertrand Be Yangué, a member of the Zamboye youth council, said hope for finding additional survivors was fading given the scale of the collapse. Says Yangué, “Finding them alive would be a miracle. We are saddened and heartbroken to see young men and women perish after coming to the mines to save their families from despair.”
He added that the death toll is expected to rise as recovery work continues, a concern compounded by reports that heavy machinery, including tractors, being used in the retrieval effort could further endanger anyone still alive beneath the debris. The exact number of people who were inside the mine at the time of the collapse remains unknown.
The disaster highlights the persistent risks tied to artisanal mining across parts of Africa, where such operations continue despite regulations against them, driven largely by unemployment pushing men toward abandoned or informal mining sites in search of a livelihood. Weak safety standards at these sites have contributed to repeated fatal incidents, with at least 40 deaths recorded across separate mining accidents in the Central African Republic so far this year.
