PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Four Cambodian prospectors who were digging for gold in the central province of Kampong Thom were killed when earth collapsed into the pit where they were mining, a government official and a fellow villager said Friday.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith on his Facebook page quoted reports from a local official saying the four men who died had been hired by a couple who own the mine in the rural jungle village of Snong An.
The accident occurred Thursday morning as the men were digging, said Ven Srey Tith, a villager living near the site.
Speaking by phone from her home, she said the pit was only a little more than two meters (six feet) deep, but mounds of excavated earth collapsed into it without warning and no one was nearby to see the men’s plight….