At least 13 miners were killed in Guinea when their mine collapsed, Reuters quoted the government as saying today. The miners were digging for gold near the village of Touletoni in the Siguiri region, around 60 km (40 miles) from AngloGold Ashanti's operations in the country and 800 km east of the capital Conakry, when the mine caved in on Wednesday. "The provisional death toll is terrible, 13 dead, five seriously injured, and ten missing," government spokesman Justin Morel Junior said on state radio. So-called artisanal mining in Africa, often one of the few means of earning money in isolated areas, is fraught with danger as the mines are poorly built and diggers do not wear protective equipment. Last November at least 14 illegal gold miners were killed, also near Siguiri, when disused mineshafts in which they were working collapsed.
