Congolese rescue services were on Tuesday searching for survivors after an accident in a mine in the southeast of the country, which is believed to have claimed 13 lives.
No official death toll has been given for the accident, which took place on Monday in the Mabaya cobalt mine in the resource-rich Katanga region, near the Zambian border, about 80 kilometres south of Lubumbashi.
“The search for survivors continues,” provincial minister of mining Odaz Sompo told AFP.
The mine was one of the many informal, or “artisanal” mines in the Katanga mining region where about 130 000 people risk their lives for a share of restive country's vast mineral wealth.
A local journalist and an official from a group that works with the miners confirmed that 13 people died in Monday's landslide, which came after 18 people were killed in similar accidents the previous week.
The mines are prone to such accidents because of lax safety standards, particularly as the pits are often very close together, the official said.
Despite being among the world's top producers of copper and cobalt, the Democratic Republic of Congo remains one of the world's least developed countries.
AFP