A 39-year-old artisanal miner has died after a tunnel collapsed at a 25-metre-deep mine shaft near Redwing Mine in Penhalonga, Manicaland, trapping him underground while his colleague managed to escape unharmed.
David Gweredza, of Chikwava Village under Chief Marange, was conducting illegal gold panning activities with a friend, Rodney Mukamba, 29, of Makara Village under the same chief, when the shaft caved in on the morning of Wednesday, March 12.
Acting Manicaland provincial police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Wiseman Chinyoka confirmed the incident, saying police in Penhalonga were called to attend a sudden death by trapping case at Tsapauta, near Redwing Mine, at approximately 10am on that date.
"The now deceased and his colleague had entered a 25-metre-deep mine shaft to conduct gold panning activities when the tunnel collapsed," Chinyoka said.
According to Chinyoka, Mukamba was able to get out when the tunnel gave way, escaping without injury. Gweredza was not as fortunate, and was buried beneath tonnes of soil and debris before he could reach safety.
The area around Redwing Mine in Penhalonga has long been a site of artisanal and small-scale mining activity, much of it conducted outside legal frameworks and without the engineering oversight, ground stability assessments, or safety equipment that formal mining operations require. Shaft collapses of this nature are a known and recurring hazard in such environments, where tunnels are often dug without structural support and can fail without warning, particularly at depth.
Gweredza's death is the latest in a sustained toll of fatalities among Zimbabwe's artisanal mining community, a sector that supports the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people across the country but continues to operate with minimal safety infrastructure and limited regulatory reach. No further details of the recovery operation or inquest proceedings were immediately available.
Additional reporting sourced from H-Metro. The Granite Post has independently verified key details.
