The population of Belita, a village in  the  Kadey Division , located on the border with the Central African Republic, continued to search for the bodies of miners who disappeared on Thursday evening in an earthquake.

According to village sources, relayed by ”Forêts et Développement Rural” (Foder), seven people were engulfed in this new gold mining site opened in Belita. Three men and two women, each carrying a baby on their back, were reportedly swallowed up. But on its Facebook page, the  daily newspaper  Cameroon tribune reports that the bodies of five miners have been found and eight others have been rescued.

This is not the first time that a similar tragedy has been recorded in the gold mining villages of the Eastern region. In May 2021, the collapse of two mines in Kambele, in the Batouri district, killed several dozen people, including children.

Between 2013 and April 2021, Foder recorded a total of 157 deaths at mining sites in Cameroon. Of these deaths, 25% were due to drowning and landslides caused by open pits left by miners. Of the 100 deaths whose ages are known, 38 are between 0 and 20 years old. Cameroon counts over 185 death due to gold extraction in the mines.