Hanoi - Seven workers were killed in a rockslide at a stone quarry in central Vietnam, an official said Friday. The six women and one man, ages 24 to 52, were loading stones onto trucks late Thursday at the open-pit quarry in Ha Tinh province, 350 kilometres south of Hanoi, when hundreds of cubic metres of rock collapsed and buried them, local policeman Tran Minh said.
"Six of them were killed instantly and the other died in the provincial hospital Thursday night," Minh said, adding that more than 15 other workers were able to escape the rockslide.
The police are investigating the cause, but Minh said it might have been heavy rain and the use of explosives at the quarry.
Another rockslide nearly two weeks ago in neighbouring Nghe An province killed 18 people.
Mining accidents have killed at least 39 people in Vietnam since the beginning of this year.
