/ 30 September 2000

TANZANIA MINE BLAST KILLS NINE

NINE people were killed and 14 injured by a dynamite explosion at a tanzanite mine in northern Tanzanian last weekend. Police said the victims were working in a pit and died of suffocation from inhaling poisonous fumes from the explosion in an adjacent mine. Tanzania’s artisanal miners mine the violet-blue gemstone in very unsafe and unregulated conditions, using dynamite to blast rock in the pits. Tanzanite is only found in Tanzania and is mined mostly by artisanal miners. – Reuters