The dark smoke that circled the sky broke the euphoria of children returning to class from break-time. It was a cold day in winter, Tuesday 6 June 1972, when the mine shaft exploded.
Hwange – a mining town located in Zimbabwe has one of the biggest coal fields in the world. It was discovered in 1897 by an American scout Frederick Russell Burnham and quickly grew into a big town with families coming from far and wide. Mothers remained at home, children went to school and fathers worked the mine - digging for their hopes and dreams.
June 6, 1972 was just another ordinary day for the citizens of this town until a cable car was hurled like a giant cannonball from the No. 2 mine shaft of the Wankie Colliery, burning a row of papaya trees before it came to rest 50 yards away. That was the first sign of the disaster.
The Madumabisa Mountain stood tall and ominous above the town; the town dwellers aware of the life that the mountain breathed. On the foot hills of the mountain newly constructed boxed houses lay strewn in a systematic pattern housing the families that would make their lives from the dreams captured from Underground.
As the desks in the class rattled from the explosion, and teachers stood dumbfounded; children whose fathers worked in the shaft by instinct sprinted in the direction of the sound. Mothers, wives and children gathered around, watching helplessly as the explosion bellowed and smoke packed the winter sky.
Rescue operations were hampered by gases seeping through the mine head, 15 hours later, nothing had been done. AngloAmerican Corp – the owners of the mine at that time also flew in skilled rescuers from South Africa to assist in the rescue operation and eventually the officers of the mine permitted a controversial rescue effort begin.
While the police fought off the wailing women, miners who were fortunate enough to find refuge in an airspace could be heard tapping on the pipes while others, underground too were on the emergency phones screaming to the world ‘we are alive!’ The Kamandama shaft was an underground town on its own, equipped for disaster such as these but clearly – it was not enough.
The rescue operation team pumped air into the shaft which in turn pushed the fumes deeper into it killing the little hope that families had left of their husbands, sons and fathers making it out alive.
Four hundred and twenty-six miners lost their lives - thirty six Europeans and three hundred and ninety Africans. Apart from the one hundred and seventy-six Rhodesians who died, there were ninety-one Zambians, fifty-two from Mozambique, thirty-seven from Malawi, thirty Tanzanians, fourteen Britons, twelve South Africans, nine from South West Africa, four from the Caprivi Strip, and one from Botswana.
Amidst the screams of the women and children, weary voices questioned the cause of the explosion. Here is a firsthand account from Dave Parsonage who worked at the Colliery during that time.
“I was working at the above colliery during the time of the disaster it happened at 1030hrs Tuesday 6 June. The explosion happened in one of the high extraction panels Situated directly underneath a Mountain called Madumabisa. The initial explosion was caused by a methane explosion followed by a coal-dust explosion. This swept through the mine with such an incredible speed that no one stood a chance. I worked at Wankie for a further 6 years and was senior Captain of the mine rescue teams.
There were in fact 39 Europeans and 388 Africans killed.”
Chris Higging a pilot who was late to arrive on the scene had this to say “On the night of the disaster I flew into Wankie in a Dakota of Air Rhodesia, with blankets, medical supplies etc. which, as it turned out, were not of much use. I was the first officer on the flight.”
The tragedy was spread over four days and over the vigorous tapping of the miners’ underground. The tapping gradually became faint, as the women screamed – bereft. Some ran around aimlessly, throwing themselves against boulders of rocks while others sat, stunned.
Consistent with African culture - families gathered all night at the site going through the motions of a funeral wake.
To date no official report has been published. Only fragments of ‘here say’ can be found. A fund was created to support the widows and their families. By 1978, $333,000 had been paid out to the families. Other families that migrated back to their country of origin such as Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, unfortunately did not benefit from the fund as they could not be contacted.
Corruption in the department that handled it was also rampant – upon discovery, it led to the suicide of a young woman who had been siphoning the widows’ funds.
An article by Michael Hartnack of The Herald South Africa brings to light many questions that have been left unanswered. This is not a blame shift game, but lessons need to be learnt from this mining disaster which is ranked 6th in the world. Could AngloAmerica, the then owners of the mine be held to blame, perhaps negligence on the miners part? This is what Michael Hartnack had to say;
There is still argument whether this was caused by the then owners, Anglo-American, stopping the practice of "stone dusting" (smothering accretions of coal dust with non-combustible material, to reduce its volatility) or a massive seepage of methane gas.
An excellent analysis of this controversy is included in a recently-published book, A Great Deal of Nonsense by Zimbabwean mining consultant John Hollaway, who far-sightedly takes the discussion beyond the mere technicalities and attributes the root cause to "institutional failure". There was a lack of self-critical and innovative thinking, or inability to apply it, he concludes.
Petty politics in the organisation and the industry caused the tragedy, not the methane or the coal dust.
Failure was not confined to the management of Anglo (who were never prosecuted for negligence), but to the institutions of government, particularly the mines inspectorate.
When the report of a commission of enquiry was debated in the Rhodesian parliament, one of the wisest contributions came from a young and progressive tribal leader, Senator Chief Ndiweni of Ntabazinduna. He said the disaster should be seen as a warning and a portent.
So it was: a warning and ominous portent of the escalating hostilities that were to claim 30 000 lives before Zimbabwe's 1980 independence and a further 20 000 in ensuing unrest in Matabeleland.
Recalling Chief Ndiweni's words, it has often seemed to me the mining disaster was to the Rhodesian War what the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 was to the 1914-1918 conflagrations which engulfed the whole world.
Read more of Michael’s article here
The day the explosion took place; my father was only 9 years old. His friend, Josphat came from a mining family, his father worked in the mine and was underground at the time of the explosion. That evening at home, my father was brave enough to ask his parents whether or not Josphat’s father made it out of the tunnel. All he received was a beating he will never forget. I guess parents at that time did not know or understand how to pass on information and only did what they thought they could – scare a child into shutting up.
Although 427 people may have perished, comfort can be found in the little miracles that took place that day. A Colliery police man, who was manning the shaft, survived the explosion after being rushed to the hospital where he was later treated. Another man who had asked to go home a few minutes before 1030am survived the explosion and watched it unfold from the surface amongst the crowd.
Today victory is in the hands of the Bhopal victims after a court convicted seven Indian former employees of Union Carbide of "causing death by negligence" and sentenced them to two years in jail.
The government says around 3,500 people died in the accident, but activists say 25,000 died in the immediate aftermath and the years that followed. The company and its chairman at the time, Warren Anderson, have refused to face trial.
38 years later and no official report from the Colliery, the children of that time have grown up and moved on. Miners from other towns have come in once again, digging for dreams where the bones of those who’ve passed on lie, decomposed. Wives remarried and mothers passed on. Each year on the 6th of June a family pauses, be it for a fleeting second to remember the day father left for work.
With his overalls tucked into his workboots, gloves peering from his side pocket and his hard hat nestled safely on top of his head, a father left for work and never returned.
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