At least 14 confirmed dead after an illegal open-pit gold mine collapses in Venezuela

Angostura Mayor Yorgi Arciniega said late Tuesday that he planned to take “some 30 caskets” to a community near the mine, indicating that officials feared the death toll could rise into the dozens.

Relatives of the miners gathered in La Paragua, the closest community to the mine, to ask the government to send aircraft to the remote location to rescue the injured and recover bodies.

“We are here waiting, please, for the government to support us with helicopters, planes, anything,” said Karina Ríos, whose daughter’s father was trapped in the collapse. “There are quite a few dead, there are people wounded. Why don’t they give us support, where are they?”

Ríos said she is worried that bodies could quickly decompose because of the area’s conditions.

Venezuela’s government in 2016 established a huge mining development zone stretching across the middle of the country, to add new revenues alongside its oil industry. Since then, mining operations for gold, diamonds, copper and other minerals have proliferated within and outside that zone.

Many mines operate outside or on the margins of the law. They offer lucrative jobs for ordinary Venezuelans, but conditions are brutal.

Miner Carlos Marcano, 71, survived the collapse and arrived at a triage medical tent in La Paragua Wednesday. He said the desperate situation at the mine “was terrifying.”

“One would not want a colleague, a human being, to die like that,” he said. “Some of us made it. There are a few wounded, but there are still a number of dead who have not been rescued and are buried there.”

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The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

At least 14 confirmed dead after an illegal open-pit gold mine collapses in Venezuela

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