At least 21 people have died in the past two days in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of landslides and flooding caused by heavy rains, administrative and security sources said on Saturday.
Most of the victims (at least 13) died on Friday at an irregular gold mine in the city of Rubaya, Masisi (North Kivu) province.
“The dead are the ‘diggers’ who were in the wells and the people who were next to them,” Jean-Paul Barendikiy, a spokesman for the association of informal miners, told AFP.
He confirmed that “others are still buried underground and the search continues.”
In the center of Rubaya on Saturday, as a result of heavy rains that hit the city, several houses collapsed.
Police confirmed that five people were killed in the disaster, and a local resident reported that a mother and four of her children were killed.
According to the police, in the Behambwe area, about five kilometers from Ruppaya, “three people, members of the same family, were carried away by the river.”
