Harare: Zimbabwe’s Civil Protection Unit (CPU) has begun a desperate rescue effort, pumping water out of two flooded mines where over 40 artisanal miners are trapped and feared buried.
The miners have been trapped since Tuesday evening when Silver Moon and Cricket mine in Mashonaland got flooded after the collapse of a nearby dam wall due to heavy rains.
The flowing mass of water filled up several shafts including two used by the miners to get into mine tunnels.
A report said retrieval of the bodies is expected to start today amid a lukewarm government response to the mine disaster.
The report said miners were trapped under when interlinked 30 metre-deep shafts and 20 metre-wide tunnels at Rio-Zim owned Cricket Mine and another owned by another individual were flooded.
“We urgently need to mobilise more pumps as many as we can because the water levels are continuously rising from beneath and we are not sure if the miners had reached an aquifer below,” Mashonaland West provincial administrator Cecilia Chitiyo said.
Mhondoro-Ngezi district administrator Fortunate Muzulu is quoted saying chances of rescuing any survivors were very slim.
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Polite Kambamura said proactive ways of responding to mining disasters should be put in place after noting the delays in pumping out the water from the two fateful mines.
Fourteen illegal miners perished in a similar incident after being trapped by a rock fall at Eldorado Mine in Chinhoyi.
A near 90 percent unemployment rate has forced thousands to turn to artisanal mining to survive the country’s harsh economic climate.
