Fourteen people were killed and seven others injured when an illegal gold mine collapsed in southwestern Colombia, local authorities said on Monday. The accident occurred in the rural Chambero sector of the Santa Barbara de Iscuande municipality, in the department of Narino.
Narino Governor Luis Alfonso Escobar said rescue teams had finished their work at the site.
Officials report 12 to 15 more missing miners
Jorge Tovar Castillo, a disaster response official in Narino, said an additional 12 to 15 miners had been reported missing after the collapse. He added that municipal authorities were leading the response, though communication had been difficult.
Remote rainforest terrain hampers access to the site
Santa Barbara de Iscuande sits amid dense rainforest and can only be reached by boat or small aircraft. In a message on X, Escobar described the gold mine as “informal”.
Informal and unregulated mining is common in rural Colombia, where operations often lack adequate safety measures and fatal accidents are frequent. Escobar wrote: “At this moment our priority is to save lives, accompany families and guarantee an opportune response to this painful tragedy.” In August, 13 people died in a similar mining accident in Policarpa, also in Narino.
