One person is feared dead after drowning at a water-logged unburied manganese mine in Mkushi District, Central Province.
The apparent death of 23-year-old Brian Simwala comes barely one week after two illegal teenage miners were buried alive at an illegal mine where they had gone to folk out the mineral.
The latest accident happened at Sacko Mine around 18:00 hours on Monday when Mr Simwala who was a security guard at the mine decided to go and bath from the flooded mine before he drowned.
A brief search for the body by a combined team of police and fire brigade officers yielded blank before it was suspended around10:00 hours yesterday due to lack of experienced divers and appropriate equipment.
Central Province Permanent Secretary Chanda Kabwe who rushed to the scene said he would engage the Ministry of Defence to allow some commandos to help with the search.
The controversial mine belonging to Sacko Bassi, a Mali national is one of the many unburied ditches that have been opened up by various mining companies with little supervision from relevant authorities.
It was closed for a few days early this year for mining less than 50 metres from the Great North Road before the Ministry of Mines asked the owner to fence part of the mime and allowed it to continue.
“We’re sudden as a province by the death of another young man especially that it comes barely one week when we lost two young men in a mine in this area,” he said.
“Our focus for now is to ensure that we retrieve the body of our brother, and I will try to talk to the Ministry of defence to see if we can have commandos to help in the search.”
And Mkushi district commissioner Luka Mwamba said he had ordered the suspension of the search after noticing that some officers were almost drowning during the operation.
One of the work mate of deceased Ndinjenga Simukonde who was at the site at the time of the drowning said Mr Simwala had gone to bath after knocking off from work.
Mr Simukonde said he and other employees decided to go and check for Mr Simwala at the mine after they realised that he had taken long to come back to the shelter where they were operating from.
“But when we came we only found soap, his clothes and sleepers and we knew that something was wrong and that’s how we called the supervisor and the police,” he said.
The mine along the Great North Road is one of many controversial mines in the district which have raised serious concern of environmental degradation as well as endangering the high way.

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