On 6 January 2019, it was reported that a

mine shaft Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from ...

in the Kohistan District of

Badakhshan Province Badakhshan Province (Persian/ Uzbek: , ''Badaxšān'') is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan in the north and the Pakistani regions of Lower ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

had collapsed, killing 30 people. The makeshift shaft was reportedly being used to mine

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

. Afghan government sources noted that the mining operation was unregulated and illegal, and that most of the miners were local villagers trying to supplement their incomes through rudimentary gold mining. It was reported that at least 7 other people were injured. It was also reported that locals managed to only rescue 13 people while many others including children died.

References

{{coord missing, Afghanistan 2019 mining disasters 21st century in Badakhshan Province January 2019 events in Afghanistan Man-made disasters in Afghanistan Mining disasters in Asia 2019 in Afghanistan 2019 disasters in Afghanistan