Landslide kills 14 at illegal gold mine in southwest Colombia

A landslide at an illegal gold mine in southwestern Colombia killed at least 14 diggers and injured seven on Monday. Alex González, peace and security secretary for Nariño province, gave the revised toll to Caracol television and said the search for survivors had concluded.

Rescue teams had trouble reaching the site, the governor's office said — because of the terrain and because of the criminal groups operating around it. Videos shared on social media show people and a backhoe evacuating bodies to a canoe waiting on a nearby river.

Nariño, on Colombia's border with Ecuador, is a hotspot for illegal mining. The armed groups that control the clandestine gold trade there also traffic drugs and run extortion rackets, and residents of the municipality where the mine collapsed report selective killings — carried out over suspected collaboration with security forces, over ties to rival organizations, or over stolen gold.

The people inside the pit were working one of the few jobs the region still offers. A source in the governor's office told AFP that communities lack economic alternatives to these risky activities and that traditional small-scale mining has practically disappeared. The legal trade has vanished; the digging has not.

The collapse leaves a ledger with no counterparties. An illegal mine has no owner of record, so the fourteen dead were employed by no one and the seven injured are covered by no insurer. Mine accidents are frequent in Colombia, particularly at unregulated sites — and this one sat in territory the governor's office could not reach without difficulty even for a rescue.

The search for survivors has been called off. What circulated from the site afterward was footage of a backhoe loading bodies into a canoe.