Mali gold mine tunnel collapse claims 73 lives

More than 70 people died after a tunnel collapsed at a gold mining site in Mali last week, as per a local official and the leader of a miners' group in the area, reported by AFP on Wednesday

“It started with a noise. The earth started to shake. There were over 200 gold miners in the field. The search is over now. We’ve found 73 bodies,” Oumar Sidibe, an official for gold miners in the southwestern town of Kangaba, told AFP, of the incident on Friday.

A local councillor confirmed the same toll.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Mali's Ministry of Mines reported the deaths of multiple miners but did not provide exact numbers.

The government offered its "deepest condolences to the grieving families and to the Malian people".

It also called on "communities living near mining sites and gold miners to scrupulously respect safety requirements and to work only within the perimetres dedicated to gold panning".

Among the poorest nations on earth, Mali is one of Africa's top producers of gold.

Authorities struggle to oversee artisanal mining of the metal, and disastrous landslides frequently occur at gold mining sites.

Mali produced 72.2 tonnes of gold in 2022, and according to the country's former minister of mining, Lamine Seydou Traore, in March of last year, the metal contributed 10% of GDP, 75% of export revenues, and 25% of the national budget.