At least 30 people have been killed in the collapse of a gold mine in north-eastern Afghanistan, officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The collapse occurred in the Kohistan district of Badakhshan province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Villagers had reportedly dug a 60m (220ft) deep but makeshift shaft in a river bed to hunt for gold and were caught in its collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afghanistan has vast resources of minerals but many of the mines are old and poorly maintained, creating severe safety issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Villagers were reportedly using an excavator at the site when the mine collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least seven other people were injured, officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kohistan district chief Rostam Raghi told the BBC’s Afghan service: “Locals rushed to the scene and managed to rescue only 13 workers. Dozens of others, including some children, died.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nik Mohammad Nazari, spokesman for the provincial governor, told Agence France-Presse: “The villagers have been involved in this business for decades with no government control over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have sent a rescue team to the area, but villagers have already started removing bodies from the site.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority told AFP the families of the dead would receive 50,000 afghanis ($660; \u00a3520).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afghanistan’s vast resources remain largely untapped due to the conflict with the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conflict has seen the rise in illegal mining both by villagers and Taliban fighters who use it as a key source of revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 30 people have been killed in the collapse of a gold mine in north-eastern Afghanistan, officials say. The collapse occurred in the Kohistan district of Badakhshan province. Villagers had reportedly dug a 60m (220ft) deep but makeshift shaft in a river bed to hunt for gold and were caught in its collapse. Afghanistan has vast resources of minerals… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-2831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post","tag-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2832,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831\/revisions\/2832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}