Terrified miners were seen scrambling for their lives as a massive gold mine collapsed in the Central African Republic, leaving more than 100 people dead and many more feared buried under tonnes of mud and rock.
Shocking video footage from the remote village of Zamboye shows the moment chaos erupted at the sprawling open-pit artisanal mine near the Cameroon border. Dozens of workers in brightly coloured clothes can be seen running in panic as part of the hillside suddenly gives way, sending people tumbling into the gaping holes below.
The disaster struck on Tuesday afternoon in Nana-Mambéré prefecture, about 50km from the town of Baboua. Local officials and Red Cross volunteers confirmed that more than 100 bodies have already been pulled from the rubble, with the death toll expected to rise as rescue teams dig through the mud for survivors.
One miner at the scene, Cedric Mbango, described the catastrophe in harrowing terms: “The ground completely collapsed and buried people. As I speak to you, other people are still buried.”Bertrand Be Yangué, a member of the Zamboye youth council, said many remain missing and trapped. “Finding them alive would be a miracle,” he told reporters. “We are saddened and heartbroken to see young men and women perish after coming to the mines to save their families from despair.”
The low-tech, hand-dug mine – typical of the dangerous, unregulated operations that provide a meagre living for thousands across the poverty-stricken nation – is believed to have given way when several underground tunnels collapsed, triggering a landslide.
Footage circulating online, dated August 18 and marked as validated user-generated content, captures the grim aftermath: hundreds of mud-caked men and women swarming the vast, scarred landscape, some frantically digging with bare hands while others stand in shallow, dirty pools of water. Bodies are carried away as desperate searches continue under a cloudy sky.
Cameroonian authorities say several of their citizens were among the victims, with bodies being repatriated across the nearby border. The governor of Cameroon’s East Region confirmed efforts to recover the remains of his countrymen.
A local prosecutor has launched an investigation to determine exactly what caused the collapse and who was responsible for operating the site. Rescue efforts are ongoing, with survivors treated for serious injuries in nearby hospitals.
Artisanal gold mining is a lifeline for many in the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries, but it is notoriously hazardous. Workers often dig deep tunnels with little or no safety equipment, leaving them vulnerable to exactly this kind of disaster.
As grieving families gather in Zamboye and the search for the missing continues, the full scale of the human cost is still emerging – a stark reminder of the deadly price paid by those scratching a living from the earth in one of Africa’s most fragile regions.
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