LatinNews Daily - 20 October 2026

*At least 14 people have been killed in a collapse at an illegal open-pit gold mine in Santa Bárbara de Iscuande municipality, in Colombia’s southwestern department of Nariño. The updated death toll was announced yesterday by Gabriel Ocaña, administrative director of the disaster risk management unit in the Nariño departmental government, who said that seven others had been injured, four of them seriously. Ocaña told Colombian television channel RCN Noticias that many people in western Nariño work in illegal mines and that attempts to control the practice are impeded by the area’s lack of development, access roads, and economic opportunities, as well as the presence of illegal armed groups.