At least 50 people were killed after a landslide hit a mining well in Kamituga, South Kivu Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday afternoon, according to a statement from the provincial governor on Saturday morning.

Governor Theo Ngwabidje Kasi confirmed that the majority of the victims are young people and children. The search is continuing for any survivors or dead ones and to provide assistance.

The cause of the landslide is under investigation. Yet the province has recorded landslides every year due to artisanal mining activities in several communities.

The cave-in occurred on the "Detroit" mine site at around 3 p.m. local (13:00 GMT) following heavy rains, said Emiliane Itongwa, president of the NGO Initiative of Support and Social Supervision of Women.

"Several miners were in the shaft which was covered and no one could get out. We are talking about 50 young people," Itongwa said.

Photos and videos on social media showed hundreds of people, some of whom could be heard wailing on a hillside around the mine-shaft entrance.

The mine was not located on the Kamituga gold concession owned by Canadian miner Banro Corporation, the company's chief executive said.

Mining accidents are common in unregulated artisanal mines in the DRC, with dozens of deaths reported every year in mines where often ill-equipped diggers borrow deep underground in search of ore.

A landslide at a disused gold mine killed 16 in October last year, while 43 illegal miners died in another landslide at a copper and cobalt mine in June 2019.

(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)

(Cover: Artisanal miners work at the Tilwezembe, a former industrial copper-cobalt mine, outside of Kolwezi, the capital city of Lualaba Province in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, June 11, 2016. /Reuters)