At least three artisanal miners have died after an abandoned gold mine collapsed in Nyaguda Sub Location, Bondo, Siaya County.
According to reports, the mining shaft collapsed on Tuesday, April 1, around 6 pm, while the trio were busy conducting mining activities inside the site.
Following the incident, residents, mostly fellow gold miners, rushed to the scene and began the process of retrieving the three, only to find them dead.
Speaking to the press hours after the tragic occurrence, the area village elder revealed that the gold miners were in the process of reopening the abandoned site when it suddenly caved in and buried them alive.
“In the evening, I received a distress call from my fellow village elder informing me that three people had been buried inside a mine. When I arrived, I realised that the three were buried while they were in the process of reopening the abandoned mine,” narrated the village elder.
“As per my information, the weight of the soil suppressed them and made them suffocate, but other miners intervened and attempted to rescue them; unfortunately, they were found dead,” he added.
The bodies of the three males, aged 21, 33, and 35, who were from the same village, have since been taken to the Bondo County Hospital, awaiting postmortem.
It is not the first time miners have died under such conditions. The latest incident comes barely three weeks after six female gold miners died after a prohibited gold mine collapsed in Lumba Village, Rarieda, Siaya County.
Confirming the tragedy, Lumba Village Chief Caroline Oginga disclosed that the six had, on several occasions, been warned against mining activities at the site.
However, according to Oginga, despite the warnings, the women went ahead to conduct their mining activities inside the 15-foot shaft, only to be buried alive.
“They had been cautioned against accessing the mining site but failed to heed the warning and were immediately buried inside,” said Oginga.
“When I arrived, I found they had already been retrieved. It was a site that had been left for women to mine without any permit, it was just someone’s farm that they had invaded to extract gold,” she added.
