Officials and local sources told Egens France Press that 48 people were killed in the collapse of illegally operated gold mines in western gardener on Saturday.
Mali is one of the major gold producers of Africa, and the mining site is regularly a view of fatal landslides and accidents.
Authorities have struggled to control irregular metal irregular mining in the country, one of the poorest of the world.
A local police source said, “Death toll is 48 after landslides.” The victims are mainly young women, including a single one who was taking her child on her back.
Keniba counts at least 48 deaths, ie at least 48 deaths from the Gold Prospectors Association.
The head of a local environmental organization told AFP, “It is an illegal site. There is a lot of complication in exploitation of this type of site.”
Sources told AFP that Saturday’s accident took place on an abandoned site operated by a Chinese company.
In January, a landslide in a gold mine in southern gardener killed at least 10 people and missing several others, most of them women.
A year ago, a tunnel fell to a gold mining site in the same area of Saturday’s landslide, killing more than 70 people.