At Least 12 Killed in Gold Mine Collapse in Venezuela

The Venezuelan government announced today, Sunday, that the collapse of a gold mine in the southeast of the country near an Indigenous community led to the deaths of at least 12 people. A landslide on Wednesday buried the mine, which was an informal, small-scale gold mining site, near the town of Ikabaru in Bolívar state. Amid Venezuela's long-standing economic crisis, informal mining operations have flourished in mineral-rich remote areas, where thousands work extracting profitable minerals, particularly gold, in unsafe conditions. These accident-prone mines are managed with little oversight from authorities, although the government often converts the extracted gold into bars for its own use. The Venezuelan Risk Management and Civil Protection Agency stated in a post on X that it is "providing food, water, and medical supplies to those affected, while also coordinating the transport of bodies to Puerto Ordaz, approximately 700 kilometers to the north."

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