A catastrophic landslide at an artisanal gold mine in the western Central African Republic killed more than 100 workers, local mining officials and emergency responders confirmed.
The disaster occurred Tuesday afternoon at the informal Zamboye open-pit mining site near Baboua, roughly 50 kilometers from the Cameroonian border. Search operations remain underway to extract trapped victims.
The Baboua public prosecutor confirmed the failure was triggered by the collapse of several unreinforced underground tunnels. The Structural breakdown precipitated a massive hillside slide, burying hundreds of informal miners.
Cross-border casualties have been reported. Authorities in Cameroon’s Eastern Region confirm at least four Cameroonian nationals are among the deceased, prompting joint binational relief efforts.
The Baboua prosecutor’s office has formally opened a judicial inquiry to establish legal liability. Investigators are targeting the unregistered operational directors who managed the informal, unregulated extraction hub.
Local rescue capacity remains severely constrained. Volatile earth conditions and a complete absence of heavy excavation machinery force volunteer workers to rely on hand tools to clear metric tons of displaced debris.
This tragedy underscores the lethal human toll within Sub-Saharan Africa’s informal extractive industries. Millions of desperate laborers enter hazardous, unmonitored sub-surface pits without structural engineering oversight or basic safety equipment.
The disaster reflects an escalating safety crisis across the nation’s mineral belts. A similar failure at the nearby Be-Mbari site killed dozens in June, following fatal cave-ins at Ngourroum and Gordi earlier this year.
Civil society leaders continue to criticise regulatory enforcement deficits. Critics charge that weak oversight enables illegal commercial operators to extract vast mineral wealth while offloading mortal operational risks onto disenfranchised local workers.
