More than 100 miners were killed when an artisanal gold pit caved in at Zamboye, a village in the Nana-Mambere prefecture of the western Central African Republic, on August 18, 2026, with reports from the scene putting the toll at at least 107 as crews dug through unstable earth for the missing.
The scale of the disaster came into focus days later, when harrowing footage of the collapse spread online. Video from the site showed the ground giving way at a sprawling open pit where hundreds of artisanal miners dig, swallowing people where they stood. Other clips showed mud-covered workers, men and women, lifting a body out of the hole while others milled across the site, several shouting for help.
Bertrand Be Yangué, a member of the Zamboye youth council, said several people were still missing and others remained pinned beneath the debris, and that the toll would climb as the search went on. “Finding them alive would be a miracle,” Yangué said. The loss had left the community devastated, he added, with young men and women dying at a site they had traveled to in the hope of providing for their families.
How the Ground Gave Way
According to a statement from the Baboua public prosecutor, the slide appears to have started when several of the underground tunnels being worked by miners gave way. Authorities are working to establish what caused the collapse, to identify the victims and to determine whether anyone should face criminal liability. The village lies about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the town of Baboua, near the Cameroonian frontier.
Cedric Mbango, who mines at the site, described the collapse as catastrophic, saying the ground beneath the workings simply gave way. In the hours after the cave-in, rescuers and villagers recovered 30 bodies, said Souleymane Bi, deputy mayor of the sub-prefecture, who called for outside assistance to reach those still buried. Florian Gaguende, a miner who survived, said crews were still looking for trapped colleagues, though the prospect of finding anyone alive "is getting slimmer."
A Search Slowed by Scarce Gear
How many people were inside the workings when the ground moved remains unknown. Gervais Ganagoroh, a local Red Cross volunteer involved in the relief effort, said more than 100 bodies had been recovered, a figure a senior official at a local mining association also confirmed. Several survivors were critically injured and taken to a hospital in Baboua. The search continued on August 19.
The mine ran without modern safety standards or heavy equipment, and its crews worked with hand tools and improvised structures. The site’s remoteness and the lack of specialized rescue gear slowed the push to reach anyone still alive. Local reporting in the Central African Republic said tractors and other heavy machinery had been brought in for the recovery, a method that risks crushing survivors trapped below. Laurent Ngon Baba, an elected official in Baboua, said on August 19 that it was still difficult to fix a formal toll.
The dead are believed to include nationals of both the Central African Republic and Cameroon. Cameroonian authorities identified at least three of their citizens among the victims, and reporting in Cameroon put the figure at four. Gregoire Mvongo, governor of Cameroon’s eastern region, said on public broadcaster CRTV that his administration was coordinating closely with Central African officials on the aftermath. Cameroon said its hospitals were ready to take in any wounded who crossed the border.
A Pattern of Deadly Collapses
The Zamboye disaster ranks among the deadliest mining accidents in recent years, and it follows a string of smaller collapses. In June 2026, dozens of people died in a comparable cave-in at the Be-Mbari gold site, which likewise sits along the frontier between the Central African Republic and Cameroon. Seven people were killed by a landslide at a mine in Ngourroum, in the west of the country, in the middle of March 2026. Another 20 died in February 2026 in Gordi, in the northeast. At least 40 people have been killed in mining accidents in the country in 2026.
Several thousand people work in small-scale, informal extraction in the Central African Republic, largely beyond government control. Miners rarely have protective gear, and the accidents often kill. Writing for the Central Africa Observatory on Organised Crime and Violence Project, researcher Aicha Pemboura has noted that the country regulates artisanal mining on paper, yet many miners and traders work without permits, dig in off-limits areas or move their gold outside official channels. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the sector employs tens of millions, filling the void left by weak formal economies even where the practice is criminalized.
Blame, Politics and Regulation
The government bears direct responsibility for the repeated tragedies, said Martin Ziguele, who heads the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People. Evariste Ngamana, the Central African Republic government spokesman, offered condolences to the victims’ families and said authorities were pressing to deliver relief and assistance.
In Cameroon, opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who finished second to President Paul Biya in the 2018 election, condemned those who grow rich from illegal mineral extraction, saying they show no concern for the destitute workers who labor at unregulated sites without safety measures. Cameroon adopted a new mining code in 2023 and is counting on iron, diamonds, gold, bauxite and cobalt to develop its economy. Its government has tightened oversight of the gold sector after finding a gap between declared exports and the imports logged by receiving countries, notably the United Arab Emirates, and says more than 200 companies mine there without a permit or authorization.