By Deutsche Welle
Feb 21, 2024, 11:42 PM EST
The collapse of an illegal mine in a remote place in southern Venezuela, near the border with Brazil, left at least 30 dead, local authorities reported this Wednesday, who also reported fifteen injured.
The difficult access to the site and the terrain conditions hindered a faster deployment of rescue troops, who – however – are already working.
Officials from several government entities were deployed to the “Bulla Loca” mine in the state of Bolívar, where a collapse occurred on Tuesday that buried dozens of people.
The vice minister for Risk Management and Civil Protection, Carlos Pérez Ampueda, reported on X (formerly Twitter) of the “rescue, search and rescue operations due to the landslide and collapse” of the mine.
#21Feb | Rescue, search and rescue operations continue in the collapsed mine in Mcpio. Angostura, Edo. Bolívar, where the Simón Bolívar Humanitarian Task Force was activated to support officials of the National Risk Management System… pic.twitter.com/lWpfsRPO8W
— cperezampueda (@cperezampueda) February 21, 2024
Yorgi Arciniega, mayor of Angostura, where the mine is located, said that according to the reports he has, there would be at least 30 people dead and more than 100 miners buried.
Relatives of the workers, meanwhile, were waiting for news in Puerto Guacara, about 750 km southeast of Caracas and from where boats set sail for the mine, about seven hours away by river.
“May God be with us”
Arciniega said – in statements reported by the newspaper El Universal – that he had authorized the deployment of “all the ambulances in the municipality.”
He added that “we are going to do everything possible to care for our battered patients and anyone who needs our service. Gentlemen, may God be with us.” The Operational Zone for Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis (Zoedan) of Bolívar detailed that the affected area corresponds to an open-pit “artisanal mine.”
The injured were taken to the hospital in the regional capital, Ciudad Bolívar, about four hours (about 200 km) from this mine, where about two hundred people worked, according to government estimates.
In the region, tents were set up for “field triage and pre-hospital care”, while officials from the National Service of Medicine and Forensic Sciences (Senamec) are on site, where “care, transfer and handling” work is also carried out. massive number of victims.”
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