At least 30 Afghans were killed on Sunday when a tunnel they were digging in to mine gold in northern Afghanistan collapsed, officials said.
Officials said the victims were villagers who were mining for gold illegally, rather than in a government project.
“Poor villagers during winters try to compensate their earnings by pursuing illegal mining. They dig tunnels to enter the mines,” Nek Mohammad Nazari, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.
He said the tunnel had caved in. A police spokesman for Badakhshan province, Sanaullah Rohani, earlier said the cause of the accident, which occurred in heavy snowfall, was a landslide.
Rohani said seven people were injured alongside the at least 30 killed, while they were working inside the mine in Kohistan district.
Rohani said about 50 illegal miners were present in the mine when the incident occurred and two rescue teams were deployed to help the injured.
But Fawzia Kofi, a lawmaker from Badakhshan province, put the death toll at 40, saying another 10 miners were injured when a sand crushing machine collapsed in Shepoi village of the district.
Kofi said Badakhshan was minerals rich province but it remained poor due to government’s lack of attention and failure to regulate mining in the province.
Another lawmaker from Badakhshan Mohammad Zekriya told The Washington Post that workers were in a river bed sifting for gold when rocks and debris tumbled down the mountainside. The mining activity did not prompt the landslide, he said.
Landslides are frequent in the northern mountainous provinces of Afghanistan.
Last year the Afghan government signed two contracts for the exploration of copper and gold deposits in northern provinces, to try to prevent illegal mining and move away from its dependence on foreign aid by tapping its natural resources.