Rescuers searched for dozens of miners trapped by floods in a pit in northern Tanzania on Monday with little hope of finding survivors from the mining disaster.
Only six bodies have been recovered from the tanzanite concession in Mirerani, near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, since the accident occurred early on Saturday.
Officials gave diverging counts of the number of miners believed to be trapped inside the pit, where thousands of small-scale miners dig to find the precious purple-blue mineral named after this country.
”In total, around 100 people were affected by the flooding, and 35 managed to get out alive,” Manyara regional commissioner Henry Shekifu said on Sunday.
”We are still looking for the bodies of 59 people,” he added.
Another official said on Saturday that more than 80 miners might be missing. Miners explained it was difficult to establish the exact number of missing miners because not all of them signed in before going down.
The region’s top government official was jeered by some of the miners he was addressing near the entrance to the pit, where tunnels snake down sometimes 250m below the surface.
”You come with Land Cruisers instead of machines to help us pull out colleagues,” said one of the miners.
Rescuers and miners trying to descend into the pit to retrieve bodies had very little equipment at their disposal.
Although weather conditions improved, access to Mirerani remained very difficult, an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene said.
Philip Marmo, the minister of state at the prime minister’s office in charge of disaster response, tried to reassure a crowd increasingly critical of the government’s action.
”It’s a great loss for the entire country … We are assessing the needs, we will do what it takes as soon as possible,” he said.
But miners and relatives of those missing assembled there said they had no hope of ever seeing their relatives alive.
”My husband is still down there. There are also two brothers-in-law of mine. All I want is to find their bodies,” said Rosa Manka, a young woman, sobbing as two aunts supported her.
In June 2002, at least 39 tanzanite miners died after inhaling carbon monoxide produced from a dynamite explosion. There have been several other fatal accidents linked to mining in Tanzania.
Tanzanite, a purple-blue shimmering stone, has been found only in northern Tanzania and in 2005 a leading gemstone miner said it unearthed the world’s largest tanzanite stone weighing about 3kg.
The lure of striking riches has drawn thousands of miners to Mirerani, which resembles a gold-rush town dotted with brothels, bars and hardware stores supplying the miners.
Small-scale miners such as those affected by Saturday’s disaster only get food rations from their employers and are paid only if they hit tanzanite. Some of them work months, if not years, without pay.
Many dig in highly unsafe and unstable mines using primitive tools and garden implements such as hoes, picks and spades in a bid to cash in on the potential wealth from the semi-precious stones.
Tanzanite is believed to be limited to East Africa’s Rift Valley region and the pits where the accident happened are located in the heart of Maasai land, a short distance from Mount Kilimanjaro.
The gemstone was discovered by Maasai tribesmen in 1967 and gained fame when it was launched by New York’s Tiffany the following year.
The East African nation’s mining sector has expanded rapidly over the past decade after it adopted liberal economic policies in the mid-1980s.
Tanzania is the continent’s third-largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana and is also rich in diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
The mining sector contributes less than 3% of the nation’s GDP but that should reach 10% by 2025 according to a development plan outlined by the government. – Sapa-AFP