Strong winds damaged a high-tech zeppelin that diamond giant De Beers was using to explore for diamonds in Botswana, the firm said on Friday.
Gusting winds detached the airship from its moorings on Thursday near the huge Jwaneng mine and injured a South African crew member inside, a statement said.
Botswana state television had earlier reported that the zeppelin had crashed, but De Beers said the leased airship was not flying when the accident occured.
The injured ground crew member only had cuts and bruises, but operation of the damaged airship has been suspended, said De Beers, 45% owned by Anglo American.
Officials of Germany’s Zeppelin company, which own the airship, were due to investigate the damage. The zeppelin cost around €7-million but is fully insured.
It used high-tech sensors to probe beneath the sands of Botswana’s Kalahari desert for diamond deposits.
De Beers said the although the incident will have an impact on its exploration programme, it would press on to find more diamond deposits in Botswana, the world’s largest diamond producing nation by value.
”De Beers has other technologies which will enable the company to continue with the much larger and longer term exploration programme,” it added.
Botswana’s most obvious deposits of diamonds close to the surface, have already been uncovered and De Beers’ joint venture with the government — Debswana — is under heavy pressure to find new deposits.
The zeppelin, which has a metal frame unlike non-rigid blimps, is filled with helium and has propellers on the sides, allowing it to take off vertically like a helicopter.
Zeppelins enjoyed a golden age in the 1930s when they carried passengers on hundreds of trans-Atlantic flights.
But they fell into disrepute after the spectacular 1937 Hindenburg disaster, when an airship burst into flames in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 people on board. – Reuters