The death toll from the collapse of an informal gold mine in a remote area of Sudan has risen to 82, according to local officials and activists, as rescuers struggled on Wednesday (September 16, 2026) to search for the missing with limited equipment.
The Emergency Response Rooms is a grassroots network that monitors the conflict and provides support for communities across war-torn Sudan. Despite being a major gold producer, deadly mine collapses in Sudan are not uncommon in a country where safety standards are not widely applied. Suleiman Abu Hmeida, a member of the Emergency Response Rooms, said rescuers pulled out 82 bodies by Wednesday afternoon (September 16, 2026). The official said the collapse began on Sunday (September 13, 2026) in one of the mine shafts and spread to the other interconnected shafts. A 2023 collapse killed 14 miners and one in 2021 claimed 38 lives. The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group tracking the war in Sudan, reported earlier that 67 bodies were pulled out from under the rubble, predicting the death toll could increase as rescuers continued to search for people trapped under the rubble.
Survivors said the collapse happened at the al-Zara gold mine, in Nuhud, a town in West Kordofan province, which is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have been fighting against the Sudanese military for over three years. “But dozens remain unaccounted for,” Abu Hmeida said. He said only one privately owned forklift is available for the rescue efforts, complicating the search for survivors. “The collapse is massive and the situation is very dire,” Khairal-Sayed Gabara, one of the survivors, told AP when reached by phone. He said the machinery meeded to remove the collapsed soil and rubble was not available.
