At least 13 people have been killed in Burundi after flash floods swept into a pit where they were searching for gold.
Nicodeme Ndahabonyimana, a district administrator in the northwestern province of Cibitoke, said that the bodies of 13 gold miners had been recovered from two pits on Sunday.
The miners had been trapped in flood water after the pits collapsed on Friday night amid torrential rainfall.
The bodies of two other miners who were missing and presumed dead have not been recovered, he said, urging artisanal miners to avoid pits during the rainy season.
Police and other authorities on Saturday unsuccessfully tried to extract the miners from the pits, flooded with water from the overflowing Rugogo river.
Such mining disasters are frequently reported in Burundi’s northwest and northeast, where people mining illegally prefer nighttime work to escape the oversight of authorities.
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