8 miners are dead and 1 is missing after a mine collapse in Zambia

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Police say eight miners have died after being buried under mounds of earth that collapsed on them in an open-pit copper mine in Zambia. Provincial police commissioner Peacewell Mweemba said one miner was missing and another two survived Wednesday’s collapse. State media reported that six of the miners who died at the mine in the city of Chingola in Copperbelt Province were from the same family. The victims were not employees of the mining company but part of a group who had been searching for copper at the mine without permission, a common phenomenon in Zambia. It’s the latest in a series of tragedies involving informal miners in copper-rich Zambia.