On Monday, May 6th 2024, a 50-feet gold mine in Lumba village caved in and buried one miner. The miner and three others were working on the shaft, and were on their way out when it collapsed. Three miners were able to get out but one was buried by mounds of soil in the shaft. At the point of writing this, the search for the trapped miner is still on.
On Thursday, December 9th 2021, the Daily Nation told stories about men who had been trapped in a Siaya gold mine for six days. One of them was a 21-year-old deejay called Philip Joel Ogutu who had left Kisumu to attend a burial in Siaya County. After the burial, he was convinced by a relative that he could strike gold, figuratively, by mining gold, literally.
He grabbed the opportunity, and for two weeks, he went to the mine faithfully in search of fortune. Disaster struck when the mine collapsed while he was underground together with ten other miners. After he was rescued, he young deejay explained that the day the mine collapsed was a day like any other. He arrived at the mine at 8 am and was partnered with two other miners and they went underground. Soon afterwards, they heard the ground vibrating and they all rushed to the mouth of the mine shaft, only to find it blocked.
One of the more experienced miners advised them to stay still and wait for those above the mine to rescue them. Anticipation was high. They still had their headlights so there was sufficient light in the bowels of the earth. And their stomachs still had the breakfast they had taken before reporting to work. They expected to be out of the mine within a few hours, narrating stories of their escape to their fascinated friends.
It was not to be. For six days, the young men were trapped underground, each day making efforts of their rescue seem like mission impossible. Their headlights died, plunging them into total darkness. They had not carried food since they had not expected to stay underground for more than a few hours, so their stomachs started grumbling. All they had to survive was salty underground water inside the men.
Trapped in the world of moles, they turned to God.
“That incident brought me closer to God, I have never prayed and worshipped as I did while underground,” the young deejay narrated.
For another miner called Onyango, this was the second time he had been trapped underground, having suffered a similar fate in 2020. However, in 2020, he and the others were rescued within hours. This time, as hours dragged into days, marked only by a continuum of darkness, despair started to set in.
Trapped in the belly of an unforgiving earth, Onyango’s paternal instincts became sensitive, and he feared that his daughter would grow up without a father. As he made supplications to his Father in heaven, alongside the others, his earthly daughter was always in his mind.
(You can read the Daily Nation story HERE https://nation.africa/kenya/news/prayer-kept-us-going-say-miners-rescued-after-six-days-3646378 )
Meanwhile, as those trapped beneath the earth prayed and worshipped, those above the ground were toiling to get them to the surface, while making every effort to keep them alive in the meantime. The rescuers had to pump oxygen into the shaft to keep their hopes of survival alive, but they had no way of passing food. Not even water.
It was not easy for the rescuers. The Deputy County Commissioner explained that since the soil in the area was soft, they could not use excavators. And to emphasize that point, some soil collapsed into the shaft, further complicating the situation (https://nation.africa/kenya/counties/siaya/trapped-siaya-gold-diggers-cling-on-to-hope-3643652 ).
But there was hope, as some of the miners were being rescued every other day in those six days. But there was also fear for those still underneath as one miner passed away and his body recovered. In the end, Ogutu and his two companions were rescued on the sixth day. However, one miner remained buried and his body was recovered seven months later, not by official rescuers, but by other miners who offered to help the family find the body after the official rescue team failed. (https://nation.africa/kenya/counties/siaya/body-of-tom-okwach-retrieved-from-abimbo-mine-seven-months-after-getting-trapped-3860092 ).
That particular Siaya mine collapse is not an isolated case. Another mine had collapsed in the same county in April 2021 killing three miners. ( https://nation.africa/kenya/counties/siaya/three-killed-two-injured-after-mine-collapses-in-siaya-3365328 )
On the 22nd of November 2022, three women died and two other injured after a mine collapsed in West Pokot County. The area assistant chief said that although mining is a dangerous venture in the area, residents, mostly women, are pushed to the mines by poverty and hunger. They earn two hundred and fifty thousand shillings per day.
In Migori County, four miners were killed and 15 others injured when a mine collapsed (https://nation.africa/kenya/counties/migori/four-killed-15-injured-after-mine-collapses-in-migori-248364 )
But it is not just underground mines that kill workers. In January 2020, two people were killed when a quarry they were working on collapsed (https://nation.africa/kenya/counties/nyeri/two-dead-after-quarry-collapses-in-chaka-241456 ).
These stories are the inspiration behind our next novella, Striking Gold, which will be published next Friday. See you all then.
In the meantime, you can purchase and read my previous novellas HERE.
