Trapped Miners’ Tragedy: Zimbabwe Mining a Perilous Venture

Madimutse was the first of the 8 survivors to be rescued from the Battlefields mine shafts disaster in Zimbabwe with 24 bodies so far retrieved.

Relatives of deceased artisanal miners sit during an ongoing rescue and recovery operation at the flooded Cricket gold mine near Kadoma, Zimbabwe, on Feb. 17, 2019. Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images

HARARE, Zimbabwe—“He looked at me and smiled,” says Ronika Tafireyi, after seeing her husband Thinkmore Madimutse being taken to a nearby tent by a rescue team after he was saved from the Battlefields mine disaster.

Madimutse was the first of eight survivors to be rescued from the mine in Zimbabwe—with 24 bodies so far recovered—after heavy rains flooded and trapped illegal miners in Kadoma, 90 miles west of the country’s capital Harare, on the night of Feb. 12. Authorities said they had been unable to initiate rescue operations until Feb. 16 because of continued rain.