Zambia landslides bury miners digging tunnels illegally, killing 7 and leaving more than 20 missing

By Associated Press

LUSAKA: Seven miners were confirmed dead and more than 20 others were missing and presumed dead after heavy rains caused landslides that buried them inside tunnels they had been digging illegally at a copper mine in Zambia, police and local authorities said Saturday.

No bodies had yet been retrieved after the landslides late on Thursday night, police said. Many of the victims were believed to have drowned.

The miners were digging for copper ore at the Seseli open-pit mine in the copper-belt city of Chingola, around 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital, Lusaka, according to police. The landslides happened sometime between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thursday, police said.

Police gave names or partial names of seven confirmed victims and said all of the miners in the tunnels are “suspected to have died.”

Neither police nor government officials could say exactly how many miners were trapped in the tunnels, but Chingola District Commissioner Raphael Chumupi told The Associated Press that there were at least 36.

The victims were buried at multiple sites, police said. Police, a mine rescue team and emergency services were at the mine.

“The bodies are not yet retrieved, as efforts are being made to retrieve them,” police spokesperson Rae Hamoonga said.

Chumupi said the miners were engaged in illegal mining without the knowledge of the mine owners. He said they were buried in three separate tunnels.

Illegal artisanal mining is common in Chingola, where the open pits are surrounded by huge waste dumps made up of rock and earth that has been dug out of the mines.

Zambia, a southern African nation of 20 million people, is among the 10 biggest copper producers in the world.