4 killed in Wase mining pit collapse

Four miners died weekend when a mining pit collapsed with 12 local miners in Tunga village of Wase local government area of Plateau State.

Daily Trust gathered that the four corpses were extracted by eight of the 12 who initially entered the tunnel with the hope of excavating zinc and lead on Saturday evening.

The Management Committee Chairman of Wase local government area, Comrade Hassan Garba who confirmed the incident told Daily Trust after he visited the area, that members of the state Emergency Management Agency and their federal counterparts had visited the site.

Shafi’i Sambo, an acting councilor in Wase, said Tunga, a village near Gimbi, another mining community, is about 100 kilometers from Wase town which had witnessed a beehive of mining activities by locals since the tunnels were abandoned by Chinese miners.

Sambo explained that the Chinese miners had placed a warning sign in the area notifying locals and others that the tunnels were unstable but he said the danger sign never deterred many who had made brisk money from the activity.

“Youths make as much as N80,000 daily and sometimes you find over 300 people going into the tunnels. However on Saturday, there was a festivity at Gimbi with musicians from Taraba and surrounding communities. That attracted the miners and only few went for excavation,” he said.

The Plateau State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Tyopev Terna, confirmed that a mining pit had collapsed in Tunga but said the command could only confirm the death of two people.

He gave the names of the deceased as Safianu Yunusa from Dengi LGA and Usman Abdullahi of Bashar district in Wase.