Let’s make artisanal mining safer
No one knows exactly how many artisanal miners remain trapped in two gold mines in Mhondoro-Ngezi, Mashonaland West Province after a dam wall collapsed resulting in water gushing into shafts and tunnels as the panners worked on Tuesday.
It is estimated that between 60 and 70 of them were mining at the Rio-Zim-owned Cricket Mine and another owned by a Mr Baxter near Battlefields, Kadoma when disaster struck. Twenty-four bodies had been retrieved by Monday. Eight extremely lucky artisanal miners Takudzwa Kabaya (20), Thinkmore Madimutsa (23), Simon Mushonga (26), Lovemore Katsirange (43), Tinashe Ndaruza (20), Ronald Save (21), Silent Napulu (33) and Washington Chaku escaped with their lives.
The octad was rescued on Saturday after spending four days in neck-deep water underground. It must have been a harrowing 96 hours for the men who scampered unto a high rock underground as the floodwaters rose, drowning the 24 and most probably dozens more who remain unaccounted for. They spent the four days with no food, no blankets and possibly no sleep; surviving on dirty flood water and fearful of sleeping on their stone refuge.
This was indeed a freak accident because we are used to tunnels and shafts collapsing because of weak reinforcement, when underground explosions occur or when they suffocate. The Battlefields one, which involved an above-surface dam wall collapse triggering an underground deluge downstream, is indeed one of a kind.
President Mnangagwa declared the incident a state of disaster in terms of Section 27 (1) of the Civil Protection Act, Chapter 10.06.
The Act provides that in any time it appears to the President that any disaster is of such nature and extent that extraordinary measures are necessary to assist and protect the affected; he may declare a state of disaster within an area defined in the declaration.
We commiserate with the families of those who perished in the calamity. We are, too, happy for the eight lucky ones and wish them a speedy recovery. At the same time, we remain hopeful that there will be more miracle retrievals from the mines. We did not expect anyone to come out of the workings alive. Government officials did not expect good news also. Therefore, the fact that eight were rescued gives us hope that even at this late stage, more could be underground, desperate to surface.
In addition, we commend Rio-Zim, Zimplats and other private companies who are assisting the Civil Protection Unit to dewater the mines for the search for survivors and retrieval of bodies to continue. The fact that the Government declared the incident a state of disaster is a demonstration that alone, the State was unable to undertake the operation underway at the two mines.
This is yet another fatal accident in the country’s exceedingly risky artisanal mining sector. It is saddening that we continue to witness these fatalities in an industry that is so important in gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners but one that remains unregulated.
The Government, as Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Winston Chitando said on these pages yesterday, takes valuable lessons from the tragedy; lessons that will help the Government come up with strategies to ensure safer working conditions for artisanal miners.
“We are going to review mining practices and unfortunately about two weeks back the Environmental Management Agency visited the site and made certain recommendations and observations which unfortunately were not enforced,” he said.
“Obviously it is a learning point and we will as Government have a serious review of this incident and come up with a policy position. Formalisation will assist in the sense that it will enable Government to focus on formalised activities rather than haphazard operations. This is one of the issues that when we have the review will be one of the action points.”
We urge the Government to move with speed to come up with measures for artisanal miners to work in safer environments, not too prone to accidents. The measures, as the minister pointed out, will obviously work when the miners are allocated places to work legally.
While the Government has decriminalised gold panning, we are of the opinion that the Battlefields miners were operating illegally as the claims they were working did not belong to them but Rio-Zim and Mr Baxter. We know of many more cases where panners invade disused mines at night to work and emerging in mornings with their ore for processing. This was the case with the two mines which would make it difficult for panners to benefit from the measures that we are hopeful will be unveiled for more organised work.
In view of this we plead with artisanal miners not to venture into abandoned mines for they cannot be so sure about the reasons why they were abandoned. Also, they cannot be too sure about integrity of the structures left behind by the owners of such facilities. Instead, they must strive to seek the precious mineral in their own claims where they can operate safely and more profitably.