Guinea mine collapse kills 10

A landslide at a gold mine in north-western Guinea has killed at least 10 people, a local official said Wednesday, citing a provisional toll.

The accident occurred on Tuesday in a mine that had closed, but where small-scale miners had been working illegally, said Mamadou Cherif Diallo, the mayor of the rural Kounsitel region.

He told AFP that the provisional death toll was ten people, with several injured.

"The search is ongoing. We don't know how many people were in there," Diallo said.

Mine accidents are relatively common in Guinea, a poor West African nation of 13 million people.

In May last year, 15 people were killed after a landslide at a gold mine in the northeast of the country.

Guinea boasts rich deposits of minerals such as gold, diamonds and iron ore, but the bulk of the country's population faces a daily struggle to survive with the UN estimating that around one in two lives in poverty.

The search for gold riches attracts clandestine miners from Mali, Senegal and other West African neighbours.