In South Africa, a suspected deadly gas leak from a cylinder at an illicit gold mining operation claimed the lives of at least 16 persons, three of whom were children.
Rescuers are conducting searches within a 100-meter radius of the scene in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, where they suspect that up to 24 people may be dead.
While police, ambulance, and fire brigade search for more victims, the youngest victims are thought to be 1, 6, and 15 years old.
Zama-zamas, or illegal gold miners, had been utilising nitric oxide in a sizable shanty where they lived and worked.
This was to separate gold they extracted from dirt and earth.
Spokesman William Ntladi said: ‘The search and recovery team is searching the shacks in and around the area where the cylinder leaked to verify if there are other casualties nearby.
‘The bodies we have found had already died but others could have tried to escape and collapsed elsewhere so we won’t have a final toll until the whole scene has been fully examined.
‘We do not know when the gas started leaking but when the emergency teams arrived at around 8pm on Wednesday night the cylinder which had leaked into the shack was already empty.’
Another Ekurhuleni EMS officer spoke to TimesLIVE and said women and children were among the dead, with their bodies scattered in different parts of the settlement near the leak.
He said: ‘The zama-zama guys live amongst the community and clean and refine their gold here using gas cylinders but sadly this time the gas leaked resulting in sleeping people suffocating.
‘Others who were awake died as they tried to run but the fumes were too much to bear. The scene is horrific with bodies lying everywhere waiting for the forensic teams to arrive,’ he said.
A township elder, fearful of the zama-zamas added: ‘There is nothing we can do about them. They are too powerful and too dangerous. They live amongst us in the Angelo area.
‘What has happened has destroyed Angelo – there are bodies wherever you look.’
A South African Police source said: ‘They are a law onto themselves and are always heavily armed and wherever they set up camp rape and murder and violence follows behind them.’
It is not the first time an incident like this has happened, after 41 suspected miners were killed when a lorry carrying liquefied petroleum gas exploded under a bridge at the same township on Christmas Eve.
And at least 31 illegal miners were killed in a gas explosion while underground illegally excavating a disused mine in Welkom, in the Free State Province in June.