Illegal Gold Mine Collapse Kills 14 in Colombia

At this moment our priority is to save lives, accompany families and guarantee an opportune response to this painful tragedy, Nariño Governor Luis Alfonso Escobar wrote after an illegal gold mine collapsed in the rural Chambero sector of Santa Barbara de Iscuande municipality, killing 14 people and injuring 7. Escobar announced that search and rescue operations had concluded and, in a message on X, described the mine as informal. Jorge Tovar Castillo, a disaster response official in Nariño, reported that an additional 12 to 15 miners were missing and said communication with the area had been difficult. Santa Barbara de Iscuande is surrounded by dense rainforest and can be reached only by boat or small aircraft. In August 2026, 13 people died in a similar mining accident in Policarpa, also in Nariño. Other outlets reported death tolls of 9 and 6, and some described the event as a landslide rather than a collapse. Accounts differed on whether search-and-rescue operations remained underway or had concluded.