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For nearly a month, in Burkina Faso, rescue teams have been trying to get eight miners trapped in a zinc mine, while torrential rains have caused flooding in the galleries.
In the bowels of a huge zinc mine, a last-ditch rescue operation is being played out on Thursday, May 12. Eight miners, six Burkinabè, a Zambian and a Tanzanian, are still stuck in an underground gallery of the Perkoa zinc mine, about 100 km west of Ouagadougou, operated by the Canadian company Trevali Mining.
On April 16, after heavy rains, a deluge attacked the place. Since then, rescue teams have taken turns 24 hours a day to pump millions of liters of water. The situation is urgent.
Refuge rooms are in the mine, located 580 meters underground and equipped with survival kits, enough to hope that the miners are there. But for now, two rooms are still inaccessible due to water. Pumping operations are progressing slowly. The Canadian group that operates the mine is accused of having been slow to act. The families of the disappeared gather every day and pray together. Engineers do not know for how long the rescue operations will last.