No casualties reported after hours-long rescue in Samangan province in northern Afghanistan.
Twenty-two folks have been rescued after a mine collapsed in Afghanistan, capping an hours-long effort to achieve them.
The mine within the Dara-i Sof Payin district of Samangan province in northern Afghanistan had collapsed late on Saturday.
Esmat Muradi, the spokesman for the province’s governor, Mullah Muhammad Shoaib, had initially informed the AFP information company that thirty-two folks had been trapped.
“Excavators and rescuers have been working since early morning however sadly the opening to the mine just isn’t cleared but,” he mentioned early Sunday.
Shoaib later mentioned 22 folks had been rescued and no extra miners have been believed to be trapped. He mentioned there have been no deaths within the incident.
A video of the rescue confirmed heavy equipment shifting particles and rescuers working by torchlight to achieve these trapped, though locals had expressed concern over the shortage {of professional} rescue groups deployed.
Sources accustomed to the positioning had beforehand forged doubt that there could be any survivors, citing the presence of gasoline within the mine, its narrowness and the seemingly buildup of stress.
The kind of mine concerned was not instantly clear, though marble, copper, zinc, lead, gold, gem stones and coal are commonly mined in Afghanistan, which has been ruled by the Taliban since its 2021 takeover.
Nonetheless, there has lengthy been little oversight over Afghanistan’s mining business and lethal accidents are comparatively widespread.
At the very least 10 miners died in February 2022 after being trapped underground when a coal mine collapsed within the northern province of Baghlan.
In June 2020, seven employees have been killed after a gasoline blast precipitated a cave-in at a mine in Samangan.
And a yr earlier, at the least 30 folks died when a gold mine collapsed in Badakhshan province.
One other gold mine collapsed in January final yr within the province, though the variety of casualties stays unknown.
