SINKHOLE WILL BE BURIED, INSISTS STATE

has maintained that the Mopani Copper Mine’s South Ore Body sinkhole in Kitwe should be buried to avoid a repeat of what happened at the Black Mountain where illegal miners were buried alive.

District Commissioner Binwell Mpundu said the sinkhole posed a big risk to the safety of both the miners at Mopani and the small scale miners who were scavenging for copper ore.

In an interview Mr Mpundu said youths from Wusakile Township had been mining copper ore for years within the sinkhole area as a means to earn a living.

He said the site had been deemed unsafe for the miners by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency which had ordered Mopani to bury the sinkhole.

The sinkhole was dangerous because there were shafts beneath it.

“We are sitting on a time bomb because as the small- scale miners go down digging for copper ore at the sink hole, they may go down the tunnels built by Mopani,” Mr Mpundu said.

He said over the months discussions with MCM had intensified after Government gave the consent to have the sinkhole buried, which the thousands of young people mining there had opposed.

Mr Mpundu said Government had come up with an approach of engagement with the youths to convince them to allow Mopani to bury the site for their own safety.

“The approach we have taken as government is to have a process of engagement with the youths because you can’t take youths from where they are earning a living abruptly as we did,” he said.

Government had no option but to bury the sinkhole as it Binwell Mpundu

was a dangerous site to keep mining from.

Mr Mpundu said Government did not want a repeat of what had happened at the Black Mountain where many lives were lost when one side collapsed.

He said Government would continue engaging the youth with the hope of finding something else for them to do.

Mr Mpundu said he recognised the responsibility that lied on Government’s shoulders to find an alternative activity for the youths to earn a living.