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Group of miners resting
near a gemstone mine in the city of Arusha, northern Tanzania, on March 30,
2008, after it flooded during heavy rains ©Simon Maina (AFP)
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The collapse of an illegal gold mine has killed 19
people in northwest Tanzania, a senior police official said on Friday. The accident occurred on Thursday night at Kahama
district, Shinyanga region, near Acacia Mining's licensed Bulyanhulu gold mine
which is majority-owned by Canada's Barrick Gold Corp. The bodies were
recovered on Friday.
"The small-scale miners were buried alive after
the tunnels they were digging collapsed. All the bodies have been
recovered," Justus Kamugisha, Shinyanga region's police chief, told
Reuters by telephone.
He said police had asked for help from Bulyanhulu gold
mine in the search for survivors.
Unsafe
and unregulated illegal mining is widespread in Tanzania, which is Africa's
fourth-largest gold producer after South Africa, Ghana and Mali.
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