Islamabad: Eight more bodies were unearthed by rescue workers on Tuesday from a collapsed marble mine in northwest Pakistan. The death toll rose to 16. The cause of the tragedy is not clear. Mining accidents are common in Pakistan, where safety regulations are often ignored.
The first eight bodies were unearthed on the same day as 30 miners were loading marble into trucks at a mine in the Mohmand district near the Afghan border on Monday. Eight have been recovered today and more miners are still trapped among the boulders, said Qateer Ahmed, who is in charge of the northwestern state government’s emergency services.
Nine miners were injured, provincial labor minister Shaukat Yousafzai said. Locals speculated that the explosives may have exploded to extract the marble, causing the rock to collapse. However, officials said an investigation was underway to find the cause.
