January 4, 2024 will always remain etched in 24-year-old Tichaona Mafa’s mind as his life nearly ended at Redwing Mine in Penhalonga.
Mafa, who hails from Gokwe in the Midlands province, was about to follow 15 of his colleagues underground when disaster struck.
He had moved a few metres into the shaft when he noticed that the entrance was suddenly blocked.
“I was confused and I thought I was dreaming. There was no way out,” Mafa told Standard People when all the 15 miners were rescued last Sunday after spending three days trapped underground.
He said they felt some tremors around the mine in the Tsapauta area, but they had no idea that it was the shaft giving in.
“We felt something like a tremor, but we dismissed it as we believed that our colleagues had set off some dynamites underground,” Mafa recounted.
“Little did we know that the mine shaft had collapsed, trapping 15 of our colleagues underground.”
Mafa and his colleagues managed to return to the surface and raise alarm about what they had just experienced and that triggered fears that the miners had been killed.
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As the news of the possible disaster filtered into the nearby communities, and subsequently the whole of Zimbabwe, there was panic.
Villagers from the nearby Tsvingwe village joined other artisanal miners that thronged the scene of the accident.
For the victims’ families there was a sense of hopelessness after a local funeral services company pitched a tent at the site.
For three days, no action was taken as rescuers indicated that the scene was “hot” with the ground still shifting, which made it dangerous to enter the shaft.
Three days after the accident, family members who had traveled from across the country became agitated as they accused authorities of not doing enough to rescue the miners.
Some families had travelled from Gwanda, Matabeleland South, Karoi (Mashonaland West) and Mashonaland Central provinces.
Elizabeth Zhou, from Gwanda, who had four relatives among the 15 trapped miners, said her journey from the Matabeleland South capital to Penhalonga in Manicaland was one of the most difficult trips.
Zhou’s brothers, Tatenda, Maxwell and close relatives Last Gumbo and Angelina Mhlanga survived the mine collapse.
“One of my relatives’ friends who knew me, called indicating that the four were trapped in a shaft in Penhalonga,” she said.
“l waited for a day as l was verifying information, but it was true. Travelling all the way from Gwanda was a nightmare, it was a trip from hell.”
But Fortune Mapuranga from Karoi remained hopeful that his son, Conrad Tsiga and a relative Owen Jaison would survive the ordeal.
Mapuranga kept assuring others, who had gathered at the scene, that the miners would survive. However, few believed him.
The situation was also made worse after some artisanal miners expressed doubt considering the history of accidents at Redwing Mine.
Some civil society organisations claim that more than 100 miners perished in several accidents at the mine since 2020.
Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Misheck Mugadza, who was at the site when the 15 miners were pulled out of the shaft, hosted a party for the survivors on Tuesday following medical check-ups at Victoria Chitepo Hospital in Mutare.
“After rescuing the miners we took them to Victoria Chitepo Hospital where we screened them,” Mugadza said on Friday.
“We only have two who were weak, but we further screened them and they are now okay. They are now at their respective places and homes.”One of the survivors Tatenda Gumbo, said the traumatic experience will not deter him from hunting for the precious mineral in the dangerous mining area.
“I have always been surviving by mining and what happened was just an incident at work, so should I quit? These are risks we face as miners,” Gumbo said.
“I think God still has a purpose for me and my other colleagues whom I struggled with underground. We had no food to talk about. We survived on tree roots.”
Owen Jaison said they sometimes took time to pray as they started feeling weak.
“We had to constantly pray as we had no idea if we were going survive,” Jaison said
Penhalonga Youth Development Trust director Clinton Masanga, who has documented several mining disasters in Manicaland, said the rampant unemployment in the area pushed young people to resort to the dangerous mining activities.
“The absence of alternative employment opportunities leaves them with limited choices, perpetuating the cycle of risk -taking behaviour,” Masanga said.
“Overall, the mining operations in Penhalonga, specifically at Redwing Mine, have detrimental effects on youths in the community.”
Metallon Gold Corporation owns Redwing Mine, but the firm has not been mining the area after the mine was put on corporate rescue, which was lifted in 2022.
During its absence, illegal mining operations flourished amid a number of accidents.
