Tanzania gold miners trapped for 41 days
rescued

Five gold miners have been rescued in western Tanzania
after being trapped underground for 41 days, while 12
others are still missing, police say.

The artisanal miners survived by eating roots, soil,
frogs and cockroaches and are receiving treatment at
hospital.
The group had gone underground to rescue 11 other
miners when they became trapped, police said.
Many people search for gold in unregulated mines in
remote areas of Tanzania in the hope of becoming rich.
This is one of the longest periods that miners have
remained trapped underground. In Chile, 33 were
rescued after 69 days in 2010 in an operation which
gained worldwide attention.
Efforts by local people to rescue the Tanzanian miners
were abandoned last month after about a week, as hopes
of finding them faded, reports the BBC's Alice
Muthengi from the main city, Dar es Salaam.
But faint cries alerted other miners working nearby that
the group was still trapped underground, and search
operations hurriedly resumed at the mine in the north-
western Shinyanga region, some 900km (500 miles)
west of Dar es Salaam.
The 11 miners who were first trapped, and a colleague
who went to search for them, were still missing, and
presumed dead, Justus Kamugisha, the police chief for
western Tanzania's Kahama district, told the BBC.
The rescued miners were trapped some 100m (300 ft)
underground after a shaft collapsed, the mining
ministry said, the AFP news agency reports.
"The miners were very weak," Minister of Energy and
Mines spokeswoman Badra Masoud is quoted as
saying.
"We survived by eating cockroaches, frogs and other
insects as well as drinking dirty water that seeped in
from above," rescued miner Chacha Wambura told state-
owned television.
He added that "batteries of the torches... ran out and we
ended up in a cave that we earlier used as a store for
our tools", AFP reports.
Every so often, there are reports of miners trapped
underground in rural parts of Tanzania which have
have gold deposits. Villagers launch a search operation
for a few days, and then give up, leaving the men to
die.
A similar fate awaited the five - until their cries alerted
other miners. They then told the local chief who
mobilised the search party which found them.
There are many small gold mines in western Tanzania,
most of them dug by villagers - including children.
If they find gold, they sell it to a dealer - and live off
the money for a few weeks before going back
underground.
The areas where the artisanal gold miners work is
largely unregulated, with no health and safety
considerations.
This is unlikely to change anytime soon - people have
become accustomed to the harsh life on the mines, and
hope that one day they will find such a large quantity
of gold that it will change their lives forever.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34842058
Cc: Lalasticlala