Gold mine collapse kills at least 100 people in Central Africa

Landslide left by the collapse of one of the main roads in the Mont Ngafula district in Kinshasa, DRC. [Alexis Huguet, AFP]

A landslide at an illegal gold mine has killed at least 100 people in the Central African Republic on the border with Cameroon, local sources told AFP on Wednesday.

Search operations are still under way after the accident at the Zamboye mining site, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the town of Baboua, on Tuesday afternoon.

Several local sources said that around 100 people had died and many others were injured in the latest of many such accidents in the mineral-rich nation.

"At this stage it's difficult for us to establish a formal toll," Baboua elected official Laurent Ngon Baba told AFP early on Wednesday.

At least four of the victims were Cameroonian, the Cameroon Tribune reported.

Survivors were taken to hospital in Baboua, while the search continued on Wednesday.

The landslide is believed to have been caused by "the collapse of several underground tunnels in which miners were operating", the Baboua public prosecutor said in a statement, announcing a judicial inquiry had been opened.

Landslides are common in illegal operations outside state control in the Central African Republic.

Video images on social media showed a part of the ground at the huge open-pit mining site, where hundreds of artisanal miners work, break away and bury people in its path.

Cedric Mbango, a miner at the site, described the incident as "catastrophic".

"The ground completely collapsed and buried people," he told AFP.

Gregoire Mvongo, governor of the eastern Cameroonian region, said on public CRTV radio that they were "working in close collaboration with our Central African colleagues to deal with the aftermath of this tragedy".

In June, a similar collapse killed several dozen at the Be-Mbari gold mining site, also on the Cameroon border.

In mid-March, a landslide killed seven people at a mine in the village of Ngourroum, also in the west of the Central African Republic.

Another 20 were killed in February in Gordi, in the northeast.