Mining pit collapse kills 9 in Nigeria

State police spokesperson Hassan Usman Talba confirmed the incident to Xinhua in Gusau, the state capital saying that the law banning all forms of illegal mining is still in force and that anybody caught would face the full wrath of the law. "The only problem we are facing on the issue of illegal mining is that we cannot locate these illegal mining sites with ease because they are mostly situated in the forests," he added, Kazinform refers to  Xinhua

A resident who gave his name as Shafiu Abdullahi told Xinhua that before the tragedy, the miners would have dug about millions of naira worth of gold two days earlier.

He said the incident occurred when the miners were busy digging at one of the mining sites in Dogon Daji village. Abdullahi told Xinhua that they were about to observe their morning prayer when some people rushed to the mosque shouting for help. "We rushed to the mining site and found out that the mining pit had collapsed and there were 10 people buried underground," he added.

A security source told Xinhua it took the rescuers more than nine hours before they could bring out the bodies of the dead miners out of the collapsed pit.

According to the source, they were to get only one person alive who was rushed to the hospital.