An illegal gold mine in a remote location in southern Venezuela collapsed, killing about 25 people, according to a preliminary report from local authorities released on Wednesday.
The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon at the Bulla Loca mine, seven hours by river from La Paragua (Bolívar state, south). Dozens of people were working in the open-pit mine when an avalanche of earth suddenly fell, trapping several of the miners while others jumped into the air in fright.
The Vice Minister of Risk Management and Civil Protection, General Carlos Pérez Ampueda, published a video of the incident on X and spoke of a “massive number of victims” without giving an official number.
“At this point we don’t have an exact number,” Yorgi Arciniega, mayor of the municipality of Angostura, which includes La Paragua, told AFP. “There is talk of 25 dead and 15 injured.”
Relatives were waiting for news in Puerto Guacara, in La Paragua, about 750 km southeast of Caracas and from where the boats set sail for the Bulla Loca mine.
In a new statement provided to AFP on Wednesday, Arciniega noted that about 23 bodies had been recovered.
“So far 15 bodies and four wounded have arrived. At that moment, two more boats arrived with about eight more bodies,” explained the local port official. “What happened is regrettable,” he said.
The relatives of one of the dead miners wept inconsolably as they carried his body in a wooden box in the trunk of a truck. They took him to a small house with a tin roof, where his mother hugged other relatives.
“My little brother, my little brother,” a girl shouted next to the sheet-covered body in a room packed for the wake.
Groups of young people on motorcycles accompanied the trucks carrying the bodies brought out of the mine. Several recorded the funeral processions on their cell phones.
“We ask that they assist us with helicopters to rescue the injured,” a woman whose brother-in-law worked at the mine told AFP.
The mining arc region in Bolívar, which includes part of the Amazon, has an area of 112,000 km2 with large reserves of gold, diamonds, iron, bauxite, quartz and coltan. It is an area exploited by the government but also occupied by illegal groups and criminal gangs.
Venezuelan authorities are conducting damage assessments
- The injured were taken to the hospital in the state capital, Ciudad Bolívar, about 200 km from this mine, where the government estimates about 200 people worked.
- A rescue and rescue team also traveled to the area from Caracas to support search efforts.
- “We are carrying out damage assessments, rescue analysis and working to conduct an investigation,” Ampueda previously told AFP.
- In La Paragua, many businesses did not open their doors.
- “This was coming,” commented Robinson Basanta, a local resident, as he referred to the miners’ unsafe conditions.