Afghans die while panning for gold

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — More than two dozen villagers panning for gold in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan were killed on Sunday after the makeshift tunnels where they were working collapsed following heavy snowfall, officials said.

Muhammad Rustam Raghi, the governor of Kohistan district, said that police officers and villagers had pulled out 30 dead as well as seven wounded and that the rescue efforts were continuing.

Raghi said that about 10,000 people pan for gold along the river, often illegally digging tunnels as deep as 50 feet with simple machinery and then searching for gold with pans for about $7 a day.

Afghanistan is believed to have vast mineral wealth, but continuing violence, a lack of strong state institutions and widespread corruption have meant that the sector contributes little to the country’s economy, which is still largely dependent on foreign donors.

On Sunday, a group of 130 workers were panning in heavy snow near or inside a tunnel by the river when the land gave way around 10 a.m., trapping and killing many of them, a local official said.

Haji Nasruddin, a local elder who helped dig up the bodies, said the heavy snowfall had made it difficult to take them away for burial.

“We have loaded the bodies onto vehicles, but there is heavy snow on the road and part of the road was also destroyed by the slide,” he said. “We are trying to fix the road before we could transport the bodies.”

The Afghan government has tried to regulate the mining sector by offering new contracts in an effort to improve oversight, but even those deals have been marred by charges of corruption and irregularity.