Bogota - Rescue workers struggled to retrieve mud-caked bodies after a landslide swept over an illegal open pit gold mine in central Colombia yesterday, killing at least 27 people and leaving dozens more missing, officials and rescue workers said.
The Red Cross said an 11-year old boy was among the workers - mostly from poor families - killed in the accident, which took place at about 5 a.m. in the rural district of La Amapola, in the coffee-rich district of Caldas, 180 kilometres west of the capital Bogota.
"In the morgue and at the town sport hall we have received 27 corpses up to now," Mr William Escobar, director of the hospital in the nearby town of Supia, said.