- The bridge falls when miners cross a flooded ditch despite a rain ban on access.
- More than 30 bodies have been recovered as search teams continue to remove victims from the scene.
- The Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt sector has long been blamed for child labor, unsafe conditions and corruption.
A bridge collapsed at a cobalt mine in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 32 illegal miners, a regional government official said on Sunday.
The bridge fell on a flooded area at the mine in Lualaba province on Saturday, provincial interior minister Roy Kaumba Mayonde told reporters. He said 32 bodies had been recovered and a search was underway for more.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces more than 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt, which is essential for batteries used in electric cars, many laptops and mobile phones.
It is estimated that more than 200,000 people work in giant illegal cobalt mines in the Central African country.
Local authorities said the bridge collapsed at the Kalando mine, about 42 kilometers (26 miles) southeast of the Lualaba provincial capital, Kolwezi.
“Despite a formal ban on access to the site due to heavy rain and the risk of a landslide, wildcat miners forced their way into the quarry,” Mayonde said.
He said miners who rushed across the makeshift bridge, built to cross a flooded ditch, caused it to collapse.
A report by the government agency SAEMAPE that monitors and assists mining cooperatives stated that the presence of soldiers at the Kalando mine had caused panic.
The report said the mine had been at the center of a long-running dispute between wildcat miners, a cooperative that was supposed to organize excavation there, and the site’s legal operators, who were said to have Chinese involvement.
The miners who fell “piled on top of each other, causing deaths and injuries,” according to the report.
Images sent to AFP Images taken by the provincial office of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) showed miners removing bodies from the ditch, with at least 17 bodies lying on the ground nearby.
The provincial coordinator of the CNDH, Arthur Kabulo, said AFP that more than 10,000 wildcat miners operated in Kalando. Provincial authorities suspended operations at the site on Sunday.
Allegations about the use of child labor, dangerous conditions and corruption have long cast a shadow over the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s cobalt mining industry.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral wealth has also been at the center of a conflict that has devastated the east of the country for more than three decades.
