ISLAMABAD: At least nine laborers were killed and several others injured or missing after a marble mine collapsed in the Buner district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, media reports said.

KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan said he has directed authorities in the area to expedite the search and rescue operations and extract those trapped in the rubble.

“We stand with the affected families in this hour of grief,” CM Khan said in a tweet posted on Sunday.

CM Khan’s special assistant, Riaz Khan, visited the area on Saturday and said that rescuers were working round the clock to expedite the process, adding that those killed and injured in the incident had been moved to the main district hospital in Buner.

Buner is a mountainous district which is adjacent to the Swat valley and famous for its marble mines.