Current:Home > Scams7 suspected illegal miners dead, more than 20 others missing in landslide in Zambia-LoTradeCoin
7 suspected illegal miners dead, more than 20 others missing in landslide in Zambia
View Date:2024-12-23 15:59:16
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Seven suspected illegal 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 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 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital, Lusaka, according to police. The landslides happened some time 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.” Police didn’t say how many miners in total there were in the tunnels but Chingola District Commissioner Raphael Chumupi told The Associated Press that there were at least 36.
Government officials said that more than 30 miners were trapped in the tunnels but couldn’t give an exact number.
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.
___
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
veryGood! (24481)
Related
- Shaboozey to headline halftime show of Lions-Bears game on Thanksgiving
- Titanic Sub Missing: Billionaire Passenger’s Stepson Defends Attending Blink-182 Show During Search
- Coal Communities Across the Nation Want Biden to Fund an Economic Transition to Clean Power
- Everything You Need To Know About That $3 Magic Shaving Powder You’re Seeing All Over TikTok
- Olivia Munn began randomly drug testing John Mulaney during her first pregnancy
- Maryland’s Capital City Joins a Long Line of Litigants Seeking Climate-Related Damages from the Fossil Fuel Industry
- SNAP recipients will lose their pandemic boost and may face other reductions by March
- Why the EPA puts a higher value on rich lives lost to climate change
- Texas mother sentenced to 50 years for leaving kids in dire conditions as son’s body decomposed
- Missing Titanic Tourist Submersible: Identities of People Onboard Revealed
Ranking
- Lady Gaga Joins Wednesday Season 2 With Jenna Ortega, So Prepare to Have a Monster Ball
- Blackjewel’s Bankruptcy Filing Is a Harbinger of Trouble Ahead for the Plummeting Coal Industry
- Amazon Shoppers Swear By This $22 Pack of Boy Shorts to Prevent Chafing While Wearing Dresses
- Biden Cancels Keystone XL, Halts Drilling in Arctic Refuge on Day One, Signaling a Larger Shift Away From Fossil Fuels
- Disease could kill most of the ‘ohi‘a forests on Hawaii’s Big Island within 20 years
- One journalist was killed for his work. Another finished what he started
- Japan's conveyor belt sushi industry takes a licking from an errant customer
- Exceptionally rare dinosaur fossils discovered in Maryland
Recommendation
-
Mike Tomlin's widely questioned QB switch to Russell Wilson has quieted Steelers' critics
-
The Fed raises interest rates by only a quarter point after inflation drops
-
China Moves to Freeze Production of Climate Super-Pollutants But Lacks a System to Monitor Emissions
-
Watch a Florida man wrestle a record-breaking 19-foot-long Burmese python: Giant is an understatement
-
New Yorkers vent their feelings over the election and the Knicks via subway tunnel sticky notes
-
Coal Communities Across the Nation Want Biden to Fund an Economic Transition to Clean Power
-
This doctor wants to prescribe a cure for homelessness
-
Not Waiting for Public Comment, Trump Administration Schedules Lease Sale for Arctic Wildlife Refuge