After the flood of the Perkoa zinc mine, exploited by Trevali Mining, the emergency services have been taking turns for two weeks to extract men missing at the call.
Le Monde
A race against the clock is engaged in Burkina Faso to save eight minors wedged underground for two weeks, a hundred kilometers west of Ouagadougou, learned on Monday, May 2, AFP from minors and of their loved ones.
On April 16, the Canadian Company Trevali Mining which operates the site announced “the disappearance” of the eight minors – six Burkinabés, a Zambian and a Tanzanian – after the “flood” of its underground installations at the Zinc mine of Perkoa.
“It is after an evacuation alert, following the flood of the site, that the absence of minors was noted and that a rescue operation was immediately launched” using the sappers- firefighters and military engineering, explained to AFP a mine worker under the cover of anonymity.
The rescuers have been busy since to pump the large amount of water that has invaded the mine as a result of heavy rain, he said. “For the past two weeks that they have been locked in the underground mine by rainwater, we have no news, said André Bamouni, a parent of one of the trapped minors. We have no information on the level of research , nor the chances of finding them alive. “The latter believes that the situation has become” critical “, because their chances of survival” fall asleep day after day, but hope is (still) allowed “.
“Solidarity chain”
“What happened is the result of a certain irresponsibility of mine officials,” said Burkinabé Prime Minister Albert Ouédraogo, who went there this weekend. He noted that “a few days before the accident”, there were “dynamics on the open -air mine which weakened the gallery and favored this flood”.
m. Ouédraogo announced the opening of an investigation to “locate all responsibilities”, indicating that “conservatory measures” have been taken to prevent mine officials from leaving Burkinabé territory.
For their part, the families of six minors paid “complaint against X” for “attempted manslaughter”, “endangering the life of others” and “non-assistance to person in danger”.
The fate of minors moves the whole country and a chain of solidarity was launched on social networks, calling the authorities to “implement” to save them. The production was interrupted at the Perkoa mine, the only to extract zinc in Burkina Faso.