At least 20 dead in DR Congo gold mine collapse: minister

Bukavu (DR Congo) (AFP) - At least 20 people were killed in a gold mine collapse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a local minister said on Sunday.

The deaths occurred overnight at the mine in the South Kivu region in the east of the country, the province's mines minister Apollinaire Bulindi said.

The toll is likely to rise "because many people were working in a disorderly way in this quarry," Bulindi said, referring to "illegal miners".

The Makungu mine where the accident took place is located in the Fizi district of Sud Kivu near the border with the Tanganyika province.

"We (the provincial authorities) do not control this quarry, these are soldiers who are working there...," he said.

Sud Kivu province has some of Democratic Republic of Congo's richest mineral deposits.

Much of the gold mined there, however, is smuggled out of the country to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and from there allegedly to Dubai, according to the OECD.