Dozens dead in a mining town in Burkina Faso after a dynamite explosion

Sign prohibiting artisanal gold mining in Zemse, Burkina Faso.

At least 59 people died and dozens were injured this Monday after a strong explosion in a mining town located in the southwest of Burkina Faso, Antoine Douamba, commissioner of the Poni province, confirmed to public television.

The detonation was caused by a fire in the market that spread through the stalls and reached a dynamite store that is used for artisanal gold mining.

Among the deceased are many women and children who were near the market at the time of the explosion.

The accident occurred this Monday after noon at the Gomgombiro mining operation, a few kilometers from the city of Gaoua, capital of the Southwest region near the border with Ghana.

An inhabitant of the town assured national television that “the victims died from an explosion caused by a fire in a storage area for contraband sticks of dynamite” that also functions as a store.

The neighbor assured that the explosion had left a "large crater" in the place, as well as numerous material damages.

The dead and wounded were taken to various health posts, especially the Gaoua regional hospital.

A health source assured Agence France Press on Monday that the final balance could be even worse.

"Many of the injured are in critical condition and their vital prognosis is seriously compromised," he said.

The authorities have announced the opening of a judicial investigation to clarify the circumstances of the tragedy and purge the possible responsibilities.

A prosecutor appeared this Monday in Gomgombiro to start the investigations.

Burkina Faso, like its neighbors Ghana, Mali or Guinea-Conakry, is a gold exporting country in which large multinational companies are present.

It also has countless artisanal gold mines in which thousands of people, many of them minors, descend underground to obtain the precious mineral in often inhumane working conditions.

This activity generates an important attraction and improvised towns arise here and there that do not meet the minimum conditions of habitability, a phenomenon that extends through large areas of the country.

The Government of Burkina Faso has tried on numerous occasions to limit or even ban illegal gold mining, but more than a million people are engaged in this activity according to the latest official estimates from the Ministry of Mines, a huge figure compared to the 15,000 jobs direct costs involved in controlled exploitation.

Sinking of the galleries dug by the miners and deaths from suffocation are common in this business.

The health and environmental consequences are also dramatic: the separation of the gold from the earth is done with mercury and this toxic material penetrates the bodies of those who wash the ore without protection and contaminates the aquifers and the land.

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