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Mererani disaster: Mining suspended as scores missing
2008-03-31 10:22:47
By Adam Ihucha and agencies, Mererani
Hope faded yesterday on the possible rescue of the 67 small-scale tanzanite miners feared drowned after Saturday`s floods that hit the Mererani mining site in Simanjiro District, Manyara Region.
Meanwhile, the government has suspended all mining activities in the area indefinitely following the disaster.
At least 166 people are said to have been busy at work inside eight pits, some as deep as 300 metres under the ground, by the time the floods struck.
Manyara Regional Commissioner Henry Shekifu said 93 miners had been pulled to safety, 67 were still unaccounted for and six bodies had been recovered by yesterday afternoon.
He confirmed by telephone from Mererani that eight pits were engulfed by the raging floods early on Saturday, drowning at least 166 miners.
He explained that he had held an emergency meeting with the owners of the pits, local Members of Parliament and the police commander on the disaster but would not go into details.
Cabinet ministers William Ngeleja (Energy and Minerals), Philip Marmo (Prime Minister`s Office - Policy, Coordination and Parliament Affairs) and Lawrence Masha (Home Affairs) were reported to have rushed to Mererani to coordinate rescue operations.
Members of the Tanzania People`s Defence Forces have been working alongside the Chief Inspector of Minerals in the Energy and Minerals ministry, Edwin Ngonyani, leading a team of experts and volunteers in checking Block B and C for modalities of expediting rescue efforts.
“The government has decided to suspend indefinitely all mining activities in the area to pave the way for more effective execution of the rescue operation,`` Ngonyani announced at the scene of tragedy yesterday.
The government said in another statement that it was dispatching water-draining equipment ``as fast as possible``, the news coming as engineers battled to restore power after the floods had brought down electricity poles.
Torrential rains have pounded many parts of Tanzania in the past few days, swamping city slums, damaging crops and cutting off remote villages.
The Tanzania Meteorological Agency has described the rains as seasonal long ones that could run well into May.
Mererani lies just south of Arusha city, at the heart of the country`s world-renowned northern tourist circuit, and is the only place in the world where the violet-blue gemstone known as tanzanite is found.
Discovered in the late 1960s, gradually attracting hordes of local and other prospectors and diggers, the gemstone is still mined haphazardly by small-scale operators with little capital – most using crude back-breaking tools.
Floods aside, some miners have previously died in explosions or of suffocation inside the pits. In 2002, at least 48 were killed when a compressor used to pump in clean air collapsed.
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