8 Miners Die After Mining Pit Collapse In Zambia
By
OSABUOHIEN VIVIAN ROSE
Eight miners have died after being buried under mounds of earth that collapsed on them in an open-pit copper mine in Zambia Wednesday, police said.
One miner was missing and another two survived, provincial police commissioner Peacewell Mweemba said.
State media reported that six of the miners who died at the mine in Chingola, a city in Copperbelt Province, were from the same family.
The victims were not employees of the mining company but part of a group who had been searching for copper at the mine without permission, quite a common practice in Zambia.
It is the recent series of tragedies involving informal miners in copper-rich Zambia.
Last December, more than 30 informal miners died at another open-pit mine in Chingola when heavy rain caused landslides that buried them in tunnels they were working in.
Nine men died at a quarry near the capital, Lusaka, in August when a huge pile of earth collapsed on them.
This month, ten informal miners died in a collapse in Mumbwa in central Zambia.
Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema has said that the number of miners who had died in accidents was not acceptable.
