Zambia buries copper miners killed in mudslide
LUSAKA, Zambia, (AFP) — Zambia on Monday buried nine miners killed in a mudslide, as rescuers searched for dozens of others that became trapped underground almost two weeks ago.
One survivor and eleven bodies have so far been retrieved from the open cast mine in the country’s main copperbelt region, according to authorities.
About 36 workers were in the tunnels when heavy rains set off a torrent of mud that buried the mine.
“We will continue searching for those under ground because they are part of our family,” President Hakainde Hichilema told the funeral service in the northern city of Chingola.
“If they were the ones outside and we were inside, they would have continued looking for us,” he added.
Last week, a 49-year-old man was pulled from the rubble alive after five days below ground.
But hopes to find other survivors have largely dissipated.
Rescue services said they retrieved seven bodies on Sunday, adding to the four found in the previous days.
Zambia is one of the world’s largest copper producers and Chingola, in the country’s Copperbelt Province, is a hotbed of illegal open-pit mining.
Deadly accidents are frequent.
The region has one of the world’s largest open-cast copper mines and some of the waste piles reach up to 100 metres (300 feet) in height.
In 2018, at least 10 people died when a mine dump collapsed in the provincial city of Kitwe, while a 2004 blast at a Chinese-owned explosives factory at a copper mine in Chambishi killed at least 46.