Illegal Gold Mine Collapse Kills 14 in Southwestern Colombia

Fourteen people were killed and seven others were injured when an illegal gold mine collapsed in southwestern Colombia on Monday, local authorities said. The collapse hit an open pit mine working with no permits in the rural Chambero sector of Santa Barbara de Iscuande municipality, in Narino province, Reuters reported.

Search and rescue operations at the site have concluded, Narino Governor Luis Alfonso Escobar said. Early in the response, disaster response official Jorge Tovar Castillo said another 12 to 15 miners had been reported missing, that communication with the area was difficult, and that municipal authorities were leading the response, Al Jazeera reported.

A town reached only by boat or small plane

Santa Barbara de Iscuande is surrounded by dense rainforest and can only be reached by boat or small aircraft, which makes it difficult for aid workers to reach the area, the Associated Press reported.

Colombia's Ombudsman's Office urged armed groups in the area to allow humanitarian aid to reach the town. "All of our efforts must go towards protecting lives and tending to this emergency," the office said on X, AP reported. The office also asked for military air support, for the hospital network to be activated, and for the Benkos Biojo hospital ship to be sent from the port town of Guapi, The News reported.

Hundreds of small mines in Colombia operate without government permits, and some are controlled by rebel groups, AP reported. Two rebel groups operate in the area around the town, including the Jacobo Arenas Block, a group led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who refused to join the 2016 peace deal with the government.

"Entire families have been killed"

"Entire families have been killed in this regrettable accident. It is very sad," Governor Escobar said, AP reported.

In a statement, Narino's government said the emergency again highlights the risks of informal mining. "In less than three months, two collapsed mines in Narino have killed 27 people," the statement said, AP reported.

Second deadly collapse in Narino since August

In August, 13 people died in a similar mining accident in the town of Policarpa, also in Narino, Reuters reported.

Informal and unregulated mining is common in rural parts of Colombia, where operations often lack adequate safety infrastructure, and fatal accidents are frequent, Reuters reported. Governor Escobar called on the national government, the National Mining Agency, and the Ministry of Mines and Energy to accelerate the formalization process for illegal and small scale miners, to improve working conditions and safety standards, Reuters reported.

Formalization is the process of bringing informal miners into the legal system, with permits, inspections and safety rules. For the miners of Chambero, that process did not arrive in time.