Landslide Kills 31 Miners, Traps 100 in Burundi

Heavy rains caused a landslide that killed at least 31 gold miners in northeastern Burundi and trapped up to 100 more, the Burundi News Agency reported Thursday.

Four people have been rescued from the caves in Butihinda since the accident Sunday, and 31 are known dead, a local administrator told the news agency. The report was monitored in Nairobi.

The landslide occurred so quickly the miners had no chance to escape, the provincial governor, Bayaga Deo, told Bujumbura Radio.

“There were no injuries, only deaths. It was so sudden that no one was able to get away,” he told the radio. “It is not possible to give an exact figure, but people who were present estimate that there are between 50 and 100” trapped.

The trapped miners apparently had gone into the mines at night to prospect for gold for themselves, according to a reporter at the Burundi News Agency.

Burundi’s government regulates the little official mining done in the central African nation. Burundi produces less than 44 pounds of gold annually, according to a recent survey of the country’s mining industry prepared by a Western embassy.