The eight miners stuck for 20 days at the bottom of the Perkoa zinc mine, in the center-west of Burkina Faso, are still prisoners of the waters and it is still not known if they are still…

Burkina: "20 days later, we still hope to find our colleagues" in the underground mine

Location of the Perkoa mine, in Burkina Faso.

Text by: Claire Fages Follow

6 mins

The eight miners stuck for 20 days at the bottom of the Perkoa zinc mine, in the center-west of Burkina Faso, are still trapped in the waters and it is still not known if they are still alive.

The authorities and the management of the Burkinabe mine had undertaken to do everything to access by this Thursday morning, May 5, the underground rescue chamber, where the miners may have taken refuge.

Why was the schedule not respected?

This is the question we put to Moussa Palenfo Ditil, the director of Nantou mining at Perkoa, the Burkinabé subsidiary of the Canadian operator, Trevali Mining.

RFI: The Burkinabè authorities and the management of the mine pledged last week to do everything to ensure that the underground chamber, where the miners may have taken refuge, is accessible before this Thursday, May 5.

It is clear that the rescue has not yet been able to take place, 20 days after the flood.

What explains this delay?

Moussa Palenfo Ditil

: Since April 16, we have been affected by this flood which has kept eight people captive in the underground mine.

Since then, we have worked with several actors, with the government authority… to put in place the means that will allow us to provide assistance to these eight people.

To date, we are pumping water at a rate of 70 liters per second, which is an increase in pumping capacity compared to what we had at the start.

Unfortunately, we encountered difficulties with the technical device.

The pumping system is a series of pumps, which can have between 5 and 7 pumps.

We are in an underground environment and we cannot have a single pump that pumps water from the bottom of the mine to the surface, so we have to set up a series of pumps.

In this device, there are some that work with electricity and there, there is no problem.

But diesel pumps are difficult to calibrate, to match with other pumps.

However, when a pump breaks down, the whole series must be stopped.

This is why, unfortunately, to date we have not been able to reach the room of refuge.

But we are redoubling our efforts.

We have ordered new pumps from Ghana, there are also pumps from South Africa.

We will receive delivery during the day.

We are also in contact with the families to continue to provide them with all our support.

We are in contact with the authorities.

The ministers will go back to the site today (Thursday 5 May).

And we hope that we will have a working session with them which will allow us to further pool our efforts, gather the means to be able to speed up the rescue operation for the eight people who are trapped in the underground mine.

You said that you were in contact with the families.

They have lodged a complaint against X and complain that they cannot collect the miners' wages.

Since April 17, we have been in regular contact with the representatives of the families of the workers who are trapped in the underground mine.

We had briefings.

We received them last Friday on the site for a visit.

They went into the underground mine to see the complexity of the situation, the conditions in which we work and the means we have implemented.

And on the side, we try to provide them with psychological support, material and financial support.

I specify that the wages were transferred to the bank accounts of the workers.

But at the same time, the mine decided to grant them financial support.

But for the moment, the families have said no, they need a framework for reflection, they do not intend to take financial support from the mine for the moment.

As for the bank, it has its requirements, we do not control under what conditions people can go to receive the wages that have been transferred to the accounts of workers who are not present.

But certainly the bank will tell what to do to unblock this.

We, the commitment we have made is to support the families by giving them financial support and we also announced that we would support them by giving them food.

We say to ourselves that right now they may need to pay the remainder of school fees, healthcare costs… There are relatives of victims who depend on workers who are not there at the moment.

So, we say to ourselves that we have to have a look at their family, the time we finish the rescue operations.

But for now, they have not accepted this support.

We understand, the situation is difficult.

Did the Canadian parent company Trevali Mining send specialized equipment to Burkina Faso to try to free these miners trapped by the waters?

The parent company mobilized immediately, because the CEO of the group Ricus Grimbeek and the director of operations Derek du Preez came, as well as other personnel such as the HSE environment director.

They came to give us their support and they came with “rescue emergency team” experts.

So they are there, we work on a daily basis.

But we have not received any material as such.

As I said, the complexity of the situation, we discover it over time.

And I think that the group is also mobilizing to provide us with more resources.

What we want is to receive all the aid that allows us to go faster in this rescue operation.

Incidentally, I would like to thank the mining industry which deployed itself, which sent pumps, piping and even personnel to support us from the first hours of this accident.

But the extent of the situation, we did not have the full measure of it from the start.

And now we realize that it is much more complicated.

We expect help from the mining sector.

There are firefighters from the national brigade based in Koudougou.

The military engineers have already helped us, but if they still want to do something else to support us, we will gladly accept their help.

Do you still hope to find the miners alive?

Yes, we have already seen accidents happen in mines all over the world, it took time and under these conditions, people were saved, even after a month.

We, our hope, is really the room of refuge.

We say to ourselves that if our colleagues were able to access the refuge room, we really hope to be able to find them, even if today we are on the 20th day.

Burkina: "20 days later, we still hope to find our colleagues" in the underground mine

Burkina: "20 days later, we still hope to find our colleagues" in the underground mine

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