Migori county residents in terror as 12 workers were buried alive and six individuals saved from a collapsed mine and promptly transported to different hospitals across the county .

The incident occurred early on Tuesday, July 9, in Kanga, Rongo sub-county.

George Matundura, the deputy commissioner of Rongo sub-county, verified the event, stating that the mine collapsed near its entrance.

“Today, we received a report of an accident at this mine where 18 individuals were trapped underground. Thankfully, we have rescued six people who are in critical condition, but 12 remain trapped,” he reported.

Matundura noted that the rescue operation had paused as they awaited county government experts, given the mine’s considerable depth.

“As of now, we have no fatalities, but we need to speed up the rescue mission since the mine is deep and those trapped might run out of oxygen,” he added.

Local residents urged swift action from the county government to ensure the safe rescue of those still trapped, emphasizing the challenge posed by the mine’s depth of approximately 750 feet.

Caleb Onyango, a local rescuer, highlighted the ongoing effort to extricate the remaining 12 miners, who had been trapped for four hours, with the expectation that county experts would soon arrive to aid in their rescue.

“The rescue mission is taking longer than expected because the mine is 750 feet deep, and we still don’t have experts to help,” he stated.