Efforts ongoing to rescue 8 miners trapped for 27 days in Burkina Faso

By Fatma Esma Arslan

DAKAR, Senegal (AA) - Efforts to rescue eight miners trapped for 27 days in a zinc mine in Burkina Faso continued on Friday.

Rescuers kept pumping out water from the Perkoa zinc mine, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the capital Ouagadougou, where eight miners are trapped since April 16, according to local media reports.

More than 3 million liters of water have been pumped out in the last 24 hours with electric pumps brought from Ghana and South Africa by the Canadian company Nantou Mining, which operates the mine.

Search and rescue teams were able to reach a depth of 580 meters (around 1,903 feet) where the mine’s shelter room is located.

Indicating that oxygen is supplied to the shelter room, the authorities noted that if the miners took shelter in this room, they had a good chance of survival.

Due to heavy rains in the region, eight miners, including six Burkina Faso nationals, one Tanzanian, and a Zambian citizen, were stranded when the mine collapsed on April 16.

Since the floodwaters also damaged the electricity and communication systems in the mine, contact with the miners could not be established.

*Writing by Jeyhun Aliyev in Ankara