By Nhau Mangirazi
There is need for post trauma counselling among victims of mines collapse that is now common nationally.
According to a women empowerment and mines rights advocate Chiedza Chipangura commonly known as Chichi lives are lost, limbs are broken when a mine collapse.
‘‘We end up losing skills. Mine closure means loss of income for the miner and their family. It will be left for families to meet expensive and sometimes inaccessible medical bills,’’ she said.
Chipangura added that trauma haunts the affected miners and dependents.
‘‘The psychological trauma can be too much to handle for the survivors resulting in them adopting violent tendencies. We need to make efforts so that they are assisted in post trauma methods,’’ she added.
Chipangura explained that investment towards mine shaft construction is lost while it may take long to reassemble equipment that is lost in the process of mine collapse.
‘‘It takes a long time with lots of capital injection to be rehabilitated and make work on any collapsed mine. This further affects gold output as production will be halted,’’ she noted.
Chipangura added that trauma cannot be quantitative.
‘‘It affects the miner, his family, friends and mine owners maybe traumatized by these mine disaster deaths. Small scale mining is perceived as a death trap because of the shared trauma,’’ said Chipnagura.
Her sentiments comes after the country has noted any increase of mine collapse around the country.
She further said some mines including Ran mine that collapsed twice, Cricket mine, Bayhorse, Task mine, Wanderer and recently Redwing mine in Penhalonga among others.
Chipangura is the Zimbabwe Miners Federation Chairperson for Mashonaland West province.
She is also founder of Norton Miners Association and Women Empowerment in Mining Zimbabwe among other posts in the mining sector that has suffered suspected human error.
Recently mines and development minister Soda Zhemu gave a directive that underground mining be stopped during the continued rainy season affecting Southern Africa region.
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