An underground coal seam fire exploded, injuring many residents and damaging infrastructure across the town. Photo credit: Hwange Colliery Company Limited
For Amon Chibuswa, the setting of the sun over the village of Dinde marks more than the arrival of Sabbath, a ritual still observed in this tiny hamlet about 40 kilometres east of Hwange, Zimbabwe's “El Dorado” of mining and power generation.
Rather, the sunset marks the end of an era for Zimbabweans, as Dinde is destined to be destroyed to make way for a Chinese-owned coal mining and thermal power plant project that the Zimbabwean government is touting as a vital addition to its depleting generating capacity.
In 2020, the government granted a licence to Beifa Investment Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of Jin'an Group, to build the Beifa coal mine and Beifa power plant in Dinde.
Chibuswa is one of many who fear the mine will wipe out their village and destroy community infrastructure such as churches, gardens, schools, clinics, dip tanks and halls.
The coal project will involve the displacement of at least 2,000 people, which Chibuswa says is a double blow because the Nambian and Tonga people who currently live in Dinde were forcibly removed from Sinamaterata and Vumbusi areas in the 1930s to make way for the construction of Hwange National Park.
“Today we are facing the same situation our grandfathers faced 90 years ago. We are being forced to abandon our ancestral land for the sake of making money. We thought the government would protect the poor from the rich, but they are using the police to arrest us when we refuse to let the Beifa destroy it,” he said.
Chibuswa accused local traditional leaders of turning against villagers after they received lavish gifts, including a car for their homes, a mini-solar power station, a borewell and a 2,000-litre water tank. The leaders allegedly threatened to prosecute and exile anyone who resisted the project.
“He wants us to accept the Beifa coal mine as it will bring development and employment opportunities but we are wondering what to do as we are already seeing the suffering and poverty caused by other mines in Hwange. We don't want that here,” Chibuswa told Oxpeckers.
Unclear plans
One of the major sticking points is that villagers say they were not consulted about the project. Lack of information about land compensation has also eroded trust on both sides. Villagers claim they will only leave after receiving compensation.
In December 2019, Beifa Investment launched a coal exploration program that allegedly left coal-sampling holes around farmhouses and violated several graveyards. Outraged by the global condemnation that followed reports alleging the desecration of the graves, Beifa Investment manager Cheng Zhouqian dismissed the reports as misleading and defamatory.
“Beifa Investments has not evicted or indicated any intention to evict any residents of Dinde. Beifa categorically denies having desecrated the graves in Dinde. Some images published in the media show holes being dug near the graves, which have been brought to our attention. We would like to point out that the company did not authorise the digging of holes. Therefore, any holes dug in the cemeteries would be the work of others unknown to the company,” Qiang said.
Underground coal fire
More than a century of coal mining in Hwange means the Matabeleland North town sits on a complex network of underground mine tunnels and abandoned mines, containing vast reserves of coal with no commercial value. Within these tunnels and deep in unexplored lands, underground coal seam fires have been raging, unseen, for decades.
In recent days, these fires have periodically erupted into flames on the surface or caused the ground to collapse into sinkholes of burning coal, injuring many residents and damaging infrastructure across the city.
A former mine safety chief at state-owned Hwange Coal Mining Company Limited (HCCL), who declined to be named for personal safety reasons, told OxSpeckers that most of the fires at Hwange were concentrated in areas where the company had previously mined.
He said heavy blasting and tunnelling beneath the town had destabilised the ground, creating large fissures that could cause underground fires and gas explosions to explode and cause small earthquakes to reach the surface.
“Many suburban housing estates were built on burning coal seams and I fear that when disaster strikes there will be little to salvage in Hwange,” he said.
“You don't realize you're sitting on it until the ground gives way and you fall into a cauldron of hot ash, hot gases and smoldering coal. The temperatures are so high that they turn your bones to ash within seconds. No one talks much about it, but many people have lost lives and limbs to coal fires.”
Human settlements
A 2021 study commissioned by the Natural Resources Governance Center, a private research and advocacy organization, found that underground coal seam fires are now rampant in HCCL-owned concession areas where miners' settlements are located.
“Residents are aware of dumping of mining residues found in areas no. 2 and 3 of HCCL. [concession] “Hwange is one of the most dangerous locations where underground coal seam fires are raging. It has been observed that dry material falling on the hot coal pile quickly ignites and spreads into the coal seam. The fire travels underground from seam to seam and remains underground for years. Removal of overburden during mining allows the fire to reach closer to the surface,” said the report, titled “Impact of Coal Seam Fires and Other Environmental Hazards in Hwange”.
In some cases, they point out, the topsoil could succumb to the heat and cause the ground to collapse.
“Studies have shown that burn survivors often suffer from chronic pain, severe problems, itching, and reduced physical strength,” the report states. “Psychosocially, a proportion may develop depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after discharge from hospital, which may persist for years after the incident.”
HCCL Managing Director Charles Ginyembwa said in a statement that he was “highly sensitive” to the underground mine fires in his mining areas following the results of an independent investigation which showed the impact of the fires on public health.
“As a preventative measure, public education campaigns [on underground coal seam fires] It is held in schools and villages and will continue to be held in the future. [around Hwange]” he said.
“Tribal elders have been employed to disseminate this information among villagers and communities living close to the affected areas will continue to be informed about temporary measures to avert risks such as road diversions and installation of signposts in affected areas. Additionally, HCCL has invested in drones equipped with cameras for security and identification of underground fires,” Giniemba said.
Dead River
Elsewhere in Hwange, the fears of the Dinde villagers are already being echoed by people living along the Deka River, which runs through the mining town and carries toxic mine wastewater from at least seven coal mines and a thermal power plant.
Villagers who spoke to Oxpeckers said people no longer drink water from the river for fear of it being poisoned, and instead collect water from wells dug by a local NGO.
“The water in the Deka river turned green about 20 years ago and has remained so due to pollution,” said Cassius Sinampande, a local village chief.
“We Tongans call ourselves 'river people' because fishing is our tradition. But we don't fish anymore because the toxic pollutants from the mine have killed the fish. The water kills people, it kills livestock. Everything that gets water from the Deka River dies.”
Residents of Hwange town suffer from noise pollution, air pollution, environmental degradation and water pollution caused by effluents from the mine and power plant. The Hwange Local Committee has also complained about the extensive destruction of the local road network caused by the mine and heavy trucks transporting coal and supplies. Residents say that heavy blasting from the mine has damaged their homes, causing cracks in most of the houses with each blast.
Acid mine drainage
A study published in December 2021 by Frontiers for Environmental Science found that acid mine drainage and other pollutants in the Deca River are causing serious environmental problems with potentially devastating effects on public health.
“Based on community-based monitoring data, coal mining and burning are found to be deteriorating the water quality of the Deka River. The main drainage, Shikabara, which joins the Deka River, releases a range of metals that are associated with metals found in very high concentrations in point sources of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD),” the report said.
“These AMD sources are mining legacies from former underground mines. Our findings indicate that the formation of AMD is primarily responsible for the critical load of Mn2+. [manganese] and other divalent transition metals are present in the river downstream of the main drainage Shikabara entrance.”
The study also documented cases of illegal pumping of mine water by miners in violation of environmental discharge standards. It concludes that acid mine lakes in the Hwange area will pose a major risk to the Deka ecosystem as long as the mine continues to ignore the environmental impacts of its activities.
“Elevated arsenic concentrations during the rainy season also make it likely that pollutants are entering the river system via the atmosphere. Potential sources of these emissions are thermal power plants,” the report said.
Because the Deka River is a source of drinking water, contaminants such as manganese, and to a lesser extent nickel and arsenic, pose a concern for human health, the researchers concluded. “These elements regularly exceed drinking water standards, with manganese being the most severe, exceeding the standard by approximately 70 times.”
The researchers recommended that the Zimbabwean government commission a public health survey across Hwange district to determine the potential public health impacts of exposure to high manganese levels.
Oscar Nkala is an Oxpeckers Associate based in Zimbabwe working on international cross-border research in sub-Saharan Africa. This research is part of Oxpeckers Associates. Research Series title” Human cost of Energy in Africa'.