Two miners and their boss died while extracting gravel from a mining pit at the Water Works at Yardu village, Gbense Chiefdom, reports say.
Mamud Kamara, a financier and head of the miners, went to the mining site on Sunday afternoon to see how far the work had been done when suddenly he was tempted to go down the pit to give a helping hand to his boys.
In the process, there appeared a crack from the top soil which came down in force and crushed the three to death.
The deputy head of CID at the Tankoro Police, H.B. Sankoh, told Awoko that there were ten men in the pit before the incident took place.
Mr Sankoh said police had been on high alert on that day and that they had helped in fishing and transporting the corpses to the Koidu Government hospital.
The Local Unit Commander at the Tankoro police ordered a post-mortem but the District Medical Officer, David Bome, advised that the exercise might not be necessary as the victims died of suffocation.