C.Africa mine landslide kills dozens

A landslide at an illegal gold mine in the western Central African Republic has killed several dozen people, local sources told AFP on Wednesday.

The collapse in the middle of the day on Tuesday at the Zamboye mine near the border with Cameroon was the latest of many such accidents in the mineral-rich nation.

Landslides are common in illegal operations outside state control.

A local civil servant said around 40 people died at the site, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the town of Baboua, while other local sources said around a hundred people had died.

"At this stage it's difficult for us to establish a formal toll," Baboua local official Laurent Ngon Baba told AFP.

Cedric Mbango, a miner at the site, described the incident as "catastrophic".

"The ground completely collapsed and buried people. As I speak to you, other people are still buried. Rescue attempts are under way," he told AFP.

Video images on social media showed a part of the ground at the huge open-pit mining site, where hundreds of miners work, break away and bury people in its path.

In June, a similar collapse killed several dozen at the Be-Mbari gold mining site, also on the Cameroon border.

In mid-March, a landslide killed seven people at a mine in the village of Ngourroum, also in the west of the Central African Republic.

Another 20 were killed in February in Gordi, in the northeast.