KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) - Dozens of people have been killed in a gold mine collapse in Sudan's Darfur region, said the chief of the district where fighting over gold in January led to the region's worst unrest in years.

"The number of people who died is more than 60," Mr Haroun al-Hassan, the local commissioner in Jebel Amir, North Darfur, said on Thursday, adding that rescue operations were still taking place.