Sudan Mine Collapse Kills at Least 82

Rescuers working with hand tools and one private forklift were still lifting bodies on Wednesday from a collapsed informal gold mine northwest of Al-Nuhud, after local officials and volunteers said at least 82 miners were dead and an unknown number remained missing in the Al-Zara pits of West Kordofan.

Accounts of when the ground first went differ: a local administrator said one shaft failed on Sunday, 13 September, and then pulled neighbouring workings down with it. Survivors and the Sudan Doctors Network timed the main collapse to Tuesday evening, 15 September. Sixty bodies were listed by Wednesday morning; 22 more were found later that day. About 50 people were reported injured.

The site is a line of adjoining shafts, about a kilometre across, cut more than 30 metres into loose sand. Miners at the rim said the pits sat so close that when one wall went, the rest followed. The Kordofan Observatory said no specialist team had arrived by Wednesday as crews used the same picks and shovels they use to dig for gold.

Survivor Khair al-Sayyed Jabara told AFP after a night of digging: “We don’t know how many more are still inside. We need heavy machinery to clear the rock and soil.” Al-Amin Suleiman said he did not think anyone still below was alive. The Doctors Network, which had earlier put the dead at 67, said the count could climb and criticised the lack of basic protection. One unverified account given to Xinhua suggested more than 300 people may have been underground when the shafts failed. How many are missing has not been independently established.

West Kordofan is held by the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023. Informal gold from Darfur and Kordofan has become a main cash source for armed groups on both sides. Artisanal pits produce most of Sudan’s gold – among Africa’s largest outputs, and occupy well over a million people who drifted into the work after formal jobs and oil money faded following South Sudan’s secession. Much of the metal leaves the country outside official channels.

Local sources told Reuters the death toll reflected the absence of timbering, rules or rescue kit. At least 32 miners died in a similar collapse in 2021; 14 died in Northern State in 2023. Until they come, the work at Al-Zara remains picks, one forklift and a rising list of names.