8 rescued from flooded mines
Updated 16:15, 17-Feb-2019
By Farai Mwakutuya
["china"]
After three days of anxiety, fading hope and around-the-clock pumping to dewater flooded pits, rescuers were finally able to safely go underground on Saturday morning, where they found eight miners alive.
They were lifted to the surface amid cheers from hundreds of family members who have been camped at the site praying and hoping that their loved ones would be found.
Twenty-four dead bodies were also pulled out of the dangerously narrow mine shafts where about 60 gold panners have been trapped since Tuesday night after heavy rainfall burst a dam wall near two mines in Battlefields in the country's mineral-rich Mashonaland West Province.
Covered in mud, tired and emotionally shaken from an ordeal where they spent three days and nights in neck-high water, the survivors say they had lost hope that they would make it out. They were taken to a nearby hospital for medical examination.
A rescued miner is carried from a pit as retrieval efforts proceed for trapped illegal gold miners in Zimbabwe, February 16, 2019. /VCG photo

A rescued miner is carried from a pit as retrieval efforts proceed for trapped illegal gold miners in Zimbabwe, February 16, 2019. /VCG photo

They claim there are others still alive underground, which has sped up already frantic activity on the surface, where the country's Civil Protection Unit has marshaled heavy duty water pumps and generators from large mining companies to assist the rescue. 
Efforts to get to the miners had been slowed down due to a shortage of equipment, but after President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the tragedy a state of national disaster, a more robust response has been mounted.
There have also been conflicting claims about the numbers trapped. Initially, the official figure was 23, then 38, but it's now believed to be as high as 60.
Fellow miners gather beside a pit during a mine search and rescue operation at Cricket Mine in Kadoma, Mashonaland West Province, February 15, 2019. /VCG Photo

Fellow miners gather beside a pit during a mine search and rescue operation at Cricket Mine in Kadoma, Mashonaland West Province, February 15, 2019. /VCG Photo

The confusion is because a large number of the miners are believed to have entered the shafts illegally, highlighting the challenges of regulating small-scale mining where accidental deaths are common and safety and environmental issues remain huge concerns.
Illegal miners frequently invade privately owned claims or sneak onto established mines to dig for gold ore.
The government has tried to enforce some controls by organizing the miners into a registered association that receives financial and technical support from the central bank. However, a large number of artisanal miners still remain outside the formal setup.
The rescue mission is continuing at Battlefields after a brief disruption because of rain on Saturday afternoon.