By Patson Chilemba
The jerabo ‘commander’ of the illegal miners at Chingola’s Seseli mine, has bemoaned the loss of his colleagues who were buried in a landslide, and described the tall order it will take to find people there as the pits are dug very deep.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Gilbert Kapungwe narrated how the tragic event unfolded and how they hoped to carry on, saying when it was noticed that the rains had started from ‘ku komboni’ they told their colleagues to be aware, saying the waves from the rains deposited into the mine and buried his colleagues.
“So when the rains start, we stop all the mining activities. But our colleagues wanted to work in earnest before the rains got heavy. Because usually we leave someone outside to monitor the situation so that when it starts raining he quickly communicates with those in the deep pits. But this time it’s like the rains had already started from the compounds whose waves came very strongly into the mines. By the time he was telling them it was already too late,” Kapungwe said. “Even the one who was doing the monitoring was buried together with the others. But we never work like that. This has never happened before. Na mano ine yalimpelela. I actually stopped going in there when I noticed that the rains had started. We all stopped. It’s not like you see it. There are a lot of pits in there. The rain which poured at first closed them all, and the only ones which remained were those same three.”
Kapungwe said what happened recently has never been witnessed before after a very long time when four people were killed.
Asked if he will continue engaging in the same illegal mining as ‘commander’ of that area, Kapungwe said they usually stop with the onset of rains but continue when the rain season finishes, saying those who were buried in the landslide were only there on account of the poor rains being recorded in the country.
“There is no one you find working in the pits when it’s raining. We all migrate to the highlands. The only problem this time around was the waves which came with the rains,” Kapungwe, who is said to have become ‘commander’ of that area with the coming to power of the UPND administration. “Everyone is sad with what has transpired there. I also have my own pit where I work from around that area but it was closed when it first rained. Since then I have never been into the pit … Those who were buried were buried by the waters together with the sand and rocks.”
Kapungwe said the pits are usually dug very deep, according to him two times the Zesco meter poles, where they find the copper, saying the rocks from underneath are pulled using some sort of electric wires.
“It’s not as nearer as what some were saying that the commandos will get there. They too would have been buried, that’s why they were stopped by those who know the area very well,” he said.
But asked about the fact that what happens there is illegal and that it was not even safe to mine there, Kapungwe argued that there was safety around that area because if it were not people would be dying every day, saying where it’s not safe he tells them not to go there.
He likened what happened to a situation where someone has gone on a cruise without anticipating that there will be a shipwreck along the way, saying people were not aware that what happened would happen.
Kapungwe said the illegal miner who was recently rescued managed to escape to a safer area within the pit and that they were actually in touch with him and the same rescued miner narrated how he lost the friend he was with in the pit.
“You know it’s just sad that where death happens you can’t anticipate,” said Kapungwe.
Asked if there was hope of finding more survivors, Kapungwe said the pits were very deep and the rains could have violently dispersed the victims.
“With those rains and rocks and sand, that area is heavily sealed and unsealing them is like starting from the scratch, putting in sacks and getting others to throw them elsewhere,” said Kapungwe.
