4.3 Two narratives of accidents and their causes
4.3.1 The Mufulira Disaster, 1970
Chapter two records the Zambian government's decision to assume a 51% share in the mines effective January 1, 1970. Before the process was even finished, the worst mining accident in the country's history took place in Mufulira. Mufulira is a town near the Democratic Republic of Congo border, which at that point draws a somewhat arbitrary line across the road leading towards Zambia's Luapula Province. Without the mine there would probably be no reason for the town and, at first glance, Mufulira seems more isolated than Kitwe or Ndola. Internet access, for example, is sparse by comparison and there are not as many shops and restaurants as can be found in other Copperbelt urban areas. But, with a closer look, Mufulira may be less isolated than it appears. It has a long-standing role as a way station for those traveling south and west from Luapula through the Congo, areas where supernatural activities are said to be particularly strong.
The night of September 25th, 1970 a tailings dam on the north side of the waste rock dump collapsed and more than one million tons of mud and water slid into the mine.50 In 15 minutes, huge sections of the mine were inundated and only 31 miners on duty there emerged alive. Another 89 mostly Zambians workers were counted as dead; the bodies of at least 50 were never recovered. In addition to this human tragedy, the Disaster's immediate effect on Zambia's copper production was monumental. Monthly averages dropped from 617,000 tonnes of ore hoisted earlier in the year to 30,000 tonnes during October.51
Official reports then and observations of executives and managers in the mid-2000s explained the why of the Disaster according to the mechanics of what had happened. They also assigned blame largely in line with the inward and outward directed causes recorded in
50 "Mufulira Disaster Correspondence September 1970 - August 1975," (File 15.2.6AP, ZCCM Archives, Ndola).
51 Commission of Inquiry, 7.
the first part of this chapter. In sum, the sinkhole was an old problem, warning signs for which had been missed, ignored, or perhaps even covered up for decades.52 Something simply happened that September night to make the old mine tailings more liquid than solid.
Scientifically speaking, this could occur under the right circumstances—an earth tremor for example.53
But such an explanation was apparently insufficient for the general Zambian populace. At the time of the Disaster, rumors circulating about the actual cause of the accident included supernatural forces and malevolent impulses.54 Additionally, many Zambians, then and now suspected the cave-in had been planned.55 Matthew Kapumba was a teenager in Mufulira at the time. In his experience, published reports concerning the numbers of dead were woeful underestimates. He recalled at least 50 funerals in his own township section while others had 30 to 100 funerals. Looking back at the Mufulira Disaster, the real reason it had occurred, he said, was because whites, upset over nationalization and Zambianization, secretly dug tunnels in the direction of the slag dump to provoke a cave in.
Resentful that they were being "chased" from the mines, as Robert Mugabe would later chase whites from Zimbabwe's farmlands, expatriates committed sabotage.
Ibid., 8ff. "Danger that went unseen: Muf inquiry reveals wrong diagnosis," Zambia Daily Mail, (February 18, 1971). Reports in the 1970s talk of studies that, in retrospect, should have been made 20 years previously.
"Mufulira Disaster Correspondence." An independent technical consultant recalled credible reports of mud oozing in two days before the Disaster. Apparently the expatriate manager who had seen it was subsequently
"banished to Nampundwe." Interview with independent technical consultant assigned to ZCCM privatization project, 2005. It is important to remember that, in 1970, the expatriate management presence would still have been significant. So, blame assigned by contemporary executives to management of that time implicated expatriates as much as Zambians, if not more so.
53 The technical term for this phenomenon is "liquefaction" which is defined as "1. The catastrophic collapse of a pile of waste material under the influence of gravity due to internal water build-up; 2. Change of state from solid to liquid." Earle A. Ripley, Robert E. Redmann, and Adele A Crowder, Environmental Effects of Mining (Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press, 1996), 304.
54 "Miners Want Muf Report Translated," Zambia Daily Mail (February 19, 1971).
55 "Resumption of Subsidence Mining at Mufulira" (photocopy, ZCCM Archives, Ndola, April 4, 1975).
Official explanations from the time and the re-privatized company's moving on in operations decades later still didn't take away the significance or the mystery of the Mufulira Disaster.5 Even though the underground area was sealed off, the old tailings dump no longer used, and mine development proceeding in an opposite direction from the inundation, the Disaster continued to affect the Mufulira community.
Roger Chaba, who worked there, said that occasionally body parts were still being retrieved.57 He thought an old European cemetery in a lone grove of trees near the mine was the burial ground for those whose had died in 1970. And a friend of his who knew the Disaster's specifics were fading from general public memory still noticed significant characteristics about the place.
As we were growing up I remember the area which—where the tragedy happened—I don't know the way things happen. There's a lot of guava trees; a lot of guava trees. So it has been put to be a restricted area, you know? It has been put as a restricted area one, on the basis that the place is not safe to go there. You can easily fall into a ditch because there are still some openings.
Once you fall into a ditch you may not be able to come out.. .The other thing is there is a belief to say the people who died from the same tragedy you never know if you go there maybe you can—you may not come back! You will not know what has taken you. So it's somehow restricted. Though I'm sure those were beliefs of those during those days when memories were still fresh.
As it is now, well, people are, they are tending to forget about it. I remember while I was in Mufulira as we were going to our fields we could pass through the same place. It's no longer that restricted now. It was really a tragedy.
As to the guava trees,
Well, this is what surprises me. I never really inquired as to how the guava trees found themselves to be that side. I don't know whether they were just being planted—of which I don't believe they were just planted. I don't know.
All I know is there is a lot of euava trees."
56 Under the circumstances, the official conclusion "that no human being consciously engineered the disaster, or could have exercised any control over it," (Commission of Inquiry, 18) was an especially pointed remark.
57 See his written comments in the appendices.
58 Interview with former Mufulira resident and mining family member, 2004.
The Mufulira Disaster was not something that really concerned expatriate mine managers in the mid-2000s. To them it was history—useful to learn from and an important memory for the community—but no longer potent. As such, it almost never got mentioned.
In casual conversations with members of the workforce/popular group, however, the Mufulira Disaster would spontaneously arise as a topic. When it was discussed in such settings, there could be an uneasiness to the memories suggesting that why it had happened and what it might mean were still unanswered questions.59
If you were to go to Mufulira and try to mess about with the area where there was the Disaster, you would be in trouble with the miners...You have to have respect for that particular area. That particular incident happened and, over the years, people have forgotten the details—the geological, the mining reasons—
why you had the Mufulira mine disaster. But everything that is related to that, you know, or the area—you don't go messing about—it is held with the same reverence that they do, you know, or that we had for graveyard cemeteries.
You don't go messing about there...you don't point at the graveyard and you never went through the graveyard. In fact, in those days, people didn't die that often. But [with] AIDS now and poverty and so on that has changed. But, here—the mine itself—that Disaster itself some would say the mine was not happy with something so it happened. °