On November 12, 2009 a collapse occurred in an illegal, privately owned gold mine in Dompoase

Dompoase

Dompoase, a suburb of Kumasi, Ashanti Region, is a town of 30,000 people in Ghana. Kumasi is the capital of the region, considered the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation. It is the area of most cocoa production, as well as gold mining....

, Ashanti Region

Ashanti Region

The Ashanti Region is the third largest of 10 administrative regions in Ghana, occupying a total land surface of 24389 square kilometers or 10.2 per cent of the total land area of Ghana. In terms of population, however, it is the most populated region with a population of 3,612,950 in 2000,...

, Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

. Up to 30 miners were prospecting the mine when it collapsed because of a landslide. At least 18 workers were killed in the collapse, including 14 women and the owner of the mine. Officials have described the disaster as the worst mine collapse in Ghanaian history.

Police in the Ghanaian capital of Accra

Accra

Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...

 have launched an investigation, and are looking into the possibility of criminal negligence

Negligence

Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.According to Jay M...

. The police commander in the Western Region

Western Region (Ghana)

The Western Region of Ghana, reaching from the Côte d'Ivoire border in the west to the Central Region in the east, includes the large twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi on the coast, coastal Axim, and a hilly inland area including Elubo. It includes Ghana's southernmost location, Cape Three Points,...

 of Ghana, Kojo Antwi Tabi, called the disaster "the biggest mining tragedy

Tragedy (event)

A tragedy is an event in which one or more losses, usually of human life, occurs that is viewed as mournful. Such an event is said to be tragic....

 that has ever hit Ghana". He also stated that he believed the government should take more measures to control the activities conducted in the mines. Safety measures in the mine were described as "poor or nonexistent".

The mine owner had contracted 6 men and 24 women to work the mine. The men performed the mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 and digging, while the women carried out the soil for sorting. A 27-year-old survivor in a hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

claimed that she was the last person out of the mine and stated that everyone would have escaped were it not for a large tree that fell during the landslide.

Police are searching for additional victims trapped in the mine. Because of the possibility of another collapse, rescue efforts remain extremely dangerous. It has been difficult to identify the bodies of the dead as well, as most of the miners were not from Ghana.