Another seven were injured in the incident in Kohistan district of Badakhshan province, district governor Mohammad Rustam Raghi told AFP. Villagers had dug a 60-metre (200-feet) deep shaft in a river bed to search for gold. “At least 30 people have been killed and seven wounded.”It was not clear why the shaft collapsed, but the provincial governor’s spokesman Nik Mohammad Nazari told AFP the miners were not professionals. “The villagers have been involved in this business for decades with no government control over them,” Nazari said. Illegal mining is common in resource-rich Afghanistan, with the Taliban relying on the sector for much of its revenue.

Source: The Guardian January 06, 2019 11:26 UTC