At least 60 gold miners were feared dead in Zimbabwe after water flooded two disused shafts in a mining town southwest of Harare, a government minister has said.
Between 60 to 70 “artisanal” miners were in the two shafts when they were flooded on Tuesday, Local Government Minister July Moyo said on Friday.
Moyo said “frantic efforts were being made to pump out water from the flooded shafts before retrieval of the victims”.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, had declared a “state of disaster”, he added.
A government mining engineer, Michael Munodawafa, told AFP news agency outside the mine in the town of Battlefields, 145 km (90 miles) southwest of the capital, that “hope of finding anyone alive is very slim since it happened Tuesday night into Wednesday morning”.
The government has launched an appeal for $200,000 to be used “to pump out water, feeding the bereaved families and the (rescue) teams on the ground, transportation and burial of the victims”, he said. -aljazeera
