KINSHASA, DR Congo: The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government said on Sunday it feared “at least 200 dead” in a “massive” landslide that struck a mine in the country’s east.
The Rubaya mine in North Kivu province produces 15 to 30 percent of the world’s supply of coltan, a key component in the production of electronics such as laptops and mobile phones.
Thousands of artisanal miners work daily Rubaya’s pits, most equipped with simple shovels and rubber boots.
A “massive landslide likely left at least 200 dead”, the country’s communications ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday, expressing its “deep dismay” over the tragedy.
According to information obtained by AFP, part of a hillside in the mine collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. A second landslide struck on Thursday morning.
Rubaya sits on steep hillsides carved by deep ravines with dirt roads, often impassable during the rainy season, winding between unstable slopes.
Governor of North Kivu, Eraston Bahati Musanga, who visited Rubaya on Friday, told AFP there were “at least 200 deaths”.
He said bodies had been recovered from the debris, without giving an exact number.
AFP was unable to independently verify a toll. Phone networks have been down for several days there.
Information is arriving “in dribs and drabs from motorbike couriers circulating the region”, making it difficult to establish an accurate toll, a humanitarian source told AFP.
Injured survivors have been taken to local health centres that have limited resources, another humanitarian source said.
Writing on X, Belgium’s embassy in Kinshasa expressed its “solidarity after the tragic landslides”.
Kinshasa on Sunday urged “the international community to fully grasp the scale of this tragedy”.
The government noted “all mining and commercial activity” had been banned in Rubaya as of February 2025, but between 112 and 125 tonnes are extracted each month and sent “exclusively to Rwanda”.
