Tanzania: 15 miners feared dead in floods

Tanzania’s government has suspended mining in an area of the northeast of the country where at least 75 miners were missing and believed to have died in mines following heavy rains, a senior official said today.

Electricity cuts and equipment shortages are hampering efforts to rescue surviving tanzanite miners or recover bodies, Manyara regional commissioner Henry Shekifu said.

“The mining activities have been suspended in the area, pending further notice,” Mr Shekifu said from the site of the flooded mines. The government has formed a task force to “take stock of the situation and act swiftly,” Shekifu said.

Local journalist Paul Sarawatt said many electricity poles in the area were washed away in heavy rains on Friday, leaving Mererani, where the mines are located, without power.

Employees of the state-owned electricity company, the Tanzania Electric Supply Company, have been working since yesterday to restore power there, Mr Sarawatt said.

Mine owners reported that 75 men went missing on Friday after heavy rains pounded their mines in Mererani, 25 miles southeast of Arusha, said Mr Shekifu.

A journalist and a mine owner have said at least six bodies have been recovered.

In April 1998, more than 100 people died when the mines flooded because of heavy rain. The exact death toll has never been determined because it was not known how many people were in the pits at the time of the flood.

In June 2002, 39 tanzanite miners suffocated to death after inhaling carbon monoxide produced by a dynamite explosion in the mine shaft.

The government licenses the tanzanite mines, and most miners work for themselves, normally using ropes to lower themselves into shafts dug by hand.

The mines, which amount to little more than holes hundreds of feet deep with few safety measures, are notoriously dangerous places to work.

Tanzanite, which can be purplish blue, green, yellow, pink or violet, was first introduced to the world market by the New York-based jeweller, Tiffany’s, which named the gemstone in honour of its country of origin.