In the early hours of Saturday, November 15 2025, a pedestrian bridge at the Kalando mine, a copper-and-cobalt site in Mulondo, Lualaba Province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), collapsed after a large crowd of miners rushed across it amid panic and overcrowding, regional officials confirmed. 

According to the province’s interior minister, Roy Kaumba Mayonde, the site had been formally declared off-limits because of heavy rainfall and heightened landslide risk. Nonetheless, illegal diggers reportedly forced entry. (The collapse was triggered when soldiers stationed at the site opened fire, prompting a flight of miners that led to the bridge failure. 

While the official death toll stands at at least thirty-two persons, a government mining-agency document estimates the fatalities may be nearer to forty. The exact total remains subject to ongoing rescue efforts and identification of victims.

This tragedy underscores the volatility of unregulated mining practices in the DRC’s southeast, where artisanal miners operate in precarious conditions and informal access to large industrial sites is common. The region’s rich cobalt and copper reserves are vital to global battery and electronics supply chains, yet safety oversight remains weak. 

Local and international observers are calling for a transparent investigation into the chain of events — including the soldiers’ role, the structural integrity of the bridge, and the management of access to the mine. The government agency for artisanal mining, SAEMAPE, has urged heightened monitoring of the site and adjacent operations. The incident adds to a legacy of fatal mining collapses in the DRC, particularly in satellite operations and illegal digger zones where rainfall, terrain instability and informal labour combine lethally.

As families mourn the dead and injured await treatment or rescue, the event places renewed pressure on both the Congolese authorities and mining-industry actors to enforce safer working standards—even where formal regulation runs thin. The full human cost, the responsibility of security forces, and the broader stakes of mineral-sector reform in the DRC now converge in Mulondo’s gravel and steel debris.