Celebrating the Vubachikwe thirteen! Heroic Mine Rescue Team shines in the face of tragedy The Vubachikwe Thirteen attend an ‘after-rescue’ operations post mortem meeting

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Every community and society has its fair share of catastrophe and tragedy in the course of human existence.

And it is in these dark times that society needs a hero or heroes to rise above worrying about themselves but the lives, concerns and considerations of others before their very own.

Quite often they involve even risking their own lives in the process of doing good for their community and fellow townspeople.

Members of the Vubachikwe mine rescue team at work at Bucks Mine in Colleen Bawn

For a community in Colleen Bawn Matabeleland South, a few miles outside Gwanda town, that story of heroism was written by a team of thirteen men who risked life and limb to display heroic exploits albeit in a dark and losing battle.

After a mine accident at Bucks Mine in Colleen Bawn, the mine rescue team at Vubachikwe was called upon to help salvage the situation.

Seven miners had plunged from the surface in a cocopan when the hoist ropes heaving it to the surface had snapped and sent them almost 230 metres into the belly of the earth down the mine shaft.

People were hoping for the best but certainly expecting the worst.

The realist would perhaps plainly see that this was more likely a recovery as opposed to rescue mission.

There was hardly any possibility that the seven had survived that freefall and the subsequent trauma of landing at the base of the shaft.

They were with their family and friends that night, the thirteen men of Vubachikwe.

Minding their business and cherishing moments with the people they loved when they got the call.

A call to come and help a community in despair in a neighbouring town.

It must have been difficult.

Mine- Image taken from Shutterstock

Mine rescue operations are treacherous business.

You never know how dangerous they are going to be.

You will never know what it is that you will face and for how long you will be away from your family and loved ones.

Moreso, you never know if at all you will return in one piece.

Risking life and limb unfortunately also means your own life is on the line and you may be treading this earth and leaving your last footprints in the soil.

Looking into the eyes of their wives and daughters and even some infant sons one last time before embarking on this treacherous task, the men boldly went where duty had summoned them.

Yet this was not an altogether alien path they were taking.

With their own mantra at Vubachikwe Mine being “Be A Brother’s Keeper; Together We Can Achieve Zero Harm,” Vubachikwe Mine Rescue team, the diamond standard when it comes to Safety, Health, Environment and Quality practitioners, were in familiar territory.

The thirteen led ably by the team captain Cleopas Karima, and his team comprised of Tapiwa Moyo, John Amidu, Munashe Chineka, Noah Moyo, Gideon Nyoni, Sydney Phiri, Wille Abas, Mandigo Maguchu, Marlvin Midzi, Bhekamina Ndlovu, Kudakwashe Mpofu, Benjamin Mazuvaapera who rose to the occasion and faced their task bravely.

In exploits carried by newspapers, radio and television stations across the entire nation, the region and international platforms, they went for over 72 gruelling hours in treacherous conditions underground and on the surface to retrieve bodies of the miners which had been submerged in underground water.

The putrid and haunting smell of death clung to their clothes and their skin, and yet they did not lose focus for what was expected from them.

It was heart-rending for them as well because in the intimate committee and community that the world of mining is, some of the deceased were known personally to them as former colleagues.

They brought to the fore torn bodies and ligaments, peeling skin and falling rotting human flesh.

And yet their bravery was in order to ensure that the loved ones of the deceased who waited heartbroken at the surface, could at least get the closure that comes with burying your loved ones and giving them as decent a send off as can be given.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with the nation’s officials in government, the Vubachikwe Mine thirteen towered over the narrative as real-life super heroes that blessed families of colleagues with the dignity of mourning their loved ones.

When the nation was looking on heartbroken and with hope of retrieving the bodies, Vubachikwe Mine Rescue team delivered and left the nation grateful for their exploits.

They are the epitome of what Vubachikwe Mine stands for.

An entity that not only contributes towards the growth of the national purse through dividends to the fiscus in their gold mining practices, but members of a community whose ethos is to always help and be there for any and all that need help in their darkest hours and deepest despair.

We all owe the Vubachikwe thirteen our gratitude for exhibiting in living motion the values of ubuntu that bind our nation together.

What Vubachikwe has attained in the rescue is a beautiful story of selflessness that ought to be celebrated and inculcated into the national moral fibre of future generations for decades to come!

Thank you Vubachikwe Mine Rescue. You are our heroes!

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