Burkina Faso: a month ago, the Perkoa mine accident
Audio 01:08
Burkina Faso: Perkoa zinc mine, on the picture of May 13, we see water in the corridors of the mine.
It is this water that the pumps evacuate to access the eight captive miners for a month.
© REUTERS/Anne Mimault
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Burkina Faso, it has been a month since eight workers from the Perkoa mine in the center west region, six Burkinabè, a Tanzanian and a Zambian, have been trapped nearly 720 meters underground following a flood.
The emergency services are at work to evacuate the waters in the hope of finding them.
The whole country is hoping that the eight minors have been able to return to the second room of refuge which could keep them alive.
But the more the days pass, the more the hope dwindles.
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The case did not make much noise from the first hours, but the situation of the eight missing minors is followed daily in the capital.
Anne Kyelem salutes the mobilization of Burkinabè, at the microphone of our correspondent in Ouagadoudgou,
Yaya Boudani.
"
They're doing a good job, extracting the water...I hope they find them alive
..."
But the more the days pass, the more the hope is diluted in spite of the means implemented to find the eight workers.
“
The situation is critical,
confides Eric Kaboré to us,
we want to keep hope but the more the days go by the thinner it becomes.
..”
According to him, the situation of the eight workers of Perkoa must challenge the government on the fate of the other workers on the mining sites.
"
It shouldn't happen, the government should take measures to protect those who are in other mines
."
Since April 16, eight miners have been stranded in a zinc mine in Perkoa, following a "
flood
" caused by torrential rains, according to the mining company.
On site, in Perkoa, the pumping continues and the water level is about three meters from the refuge chamber.
Pumping took time to get organized with ad hoc means.
The rescuers received
a few days ago new pumps
and more efficient equipment from South Africa and Ghana.
No radio contact has been established with the miners trapped in the galleries since April 16, when water damaged the electrical system.
But the oxygen system continued to work.
The rescuers' hope is that the miners have managed to reach an escape chamber.
This “chamber of refuge” is located 580 meters underground and equipped with survival kits, where rescuers hope that the miners, who were working at 700 meters deep, were able to access.
The construction of the Perkoa mine began in 2007 and zinc production there began in 2013, recalls the Burkinabè press and this serious accident is the first in its short history.
►
To read also
: the interview with Moussa Palenfo Ditil, director of Nantou mining at Perkoa, the Burkinabé subsidiary of the Canadian operator, Trevali Mining
Location of the Perkoa mine, in Burkina Faso.
© RFI
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