The Venezuelan government announced that the collapse of a gold mine in the southeast of the country near an Indigenous community led to the death of at least 12 people.
A landslide buried the mine, a place of small-scale and informal gold mining, near the town of icaparo in Bolivar state.
Amid Venezuela’s long-term economic collapse, informal mining operations have flourished in remote, mineral-rich areas, where thousands are engaged in the extraction of profitable minerals, especially gold, in unsafe conditions.
These accident-prone mines are managed with little supervision from the authorities, although the government often converts the mined gold into bullion for its own use.
Venezuela’s risk management and Civil Protection Agency said in a post on the X platform that it was providing food, water and medical supplies to those affected, while also coordinating the transfer of bodies to Puerto Ordaz, about 700 kilometers to the North.
