PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) — A landslide at mining pit in a remote part of eastern Suriname killed at least seven people who were illegally digging for gold, a company spokesman said Sunday.

The landslide took place late Saturday within mining company Surgold LLC's exploration area in the South American country's Sipaliwini district, a rain forest-covered region that is home mostly to Amerindians and descendants of runway African slaves, known as Maroons.

"Apparently (illegal) miners not associated with our exploration activities had been working at the foot of a 10-meter wall in the area when the slide occurred," said Esteban Crespo, Surgold's representative in Suriname.

Suriname police inspector Bertrand Riedewald said the seven dead miners were local Maroons. He said three other miners were able to escape while two more were injured.

A 23-year-old man who only identified himself as Roger told an Associated Press reporter that he was one of the miners to have survived the landslide.

"I was carrying the fuel when I felt the sand sliding away and fell face down 20 meters into the pit", he said. "I was so lucky to have survived this."

Thanks to record gold prices, hundreds of small-scale mining operations are proliferating along the northeastern shoulder of South America. Small-scale miners produced a record of nearly 16.5 metric tons of gold in 2009, according to Suriname's government.

The miners, many of them illegal migrants from Brazil, are scattered throughout the northern Amazon basin, occasionally fleeing crackdowns by police or the military in Venezuela, French Guiana and Guyana. They are thriving in Suriname, a country rich in resources with the weakest law enforcement in the region.

Crespo said the miners had illegally occupied the area since late last year and during the last few months "activities had escalated to the current state in which there are more that 800 people in the area utilizing dozens of excavators." He said the company was "deeply saddened" by the deaths.

Surgold, a partnership between Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. and Pittsburgh-based Alcoa Inc., has been conducting gold exploration activities within the area since 2004.