Nine miners have been pulled alive by a rescuer using his bare hands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
A video of the incident went viral on Monday.
It showed a man scrambling to pull soil from a collapsed mound of earth. One by one, muddied miners emerge from an apparent cavity in the ground. The rescuer keeps looking up anxiously at the unstable mound, parts of which appear to crumble during his efforts.
All of the men were safely pulled out alive, authorities said.
The near-disaster happened in South Kivu province on Saturday after heavy rainfall caused the collapse. The DRC has become notorious for unsafe mining, particularly of copper and cobalt. Unregulated “artisanal” mines frequently collapse.
Many of the mines are illegal and often encroach on vast, existing mines established by multinational firms.
In 2019, at least 43 unlicensed miners died at Kamoto Copper Company mine operated by Glencore, after digging unsafe tunnels on the sprawling site. A similar disaster the following year killed 50 in Kamituga.
There are an estimated 12 million artisanal miners in the DRC, known locally as creuseurs.
Reuters has verified the video, which was widely shared on social media.
In June last year, at least six miners died in a collapse near the city of Tshikapa, leading to authorities suspending mining activities in the area.
“We quickly mobilised people to clear the rubble that was blocking the entrance,” local civil society representative Crispin Kayuka said via telephone.
“It was on the morning of this Saturday … that they managed to save these nine souls.”
