On Monday morning, a plane carrying a Congolese minister and his delegation caught fire upon landing. The videos of the moment, which went viral on networks, show in first person the desperation of the passengers and how they miraculously managed to save themselves.
On the plane, an Embraer ERJ-145LR, was the Minister of Mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Louis Watum Kalambaalong with 19 other passengers, reported the Turkish agency Anadolu.
The plane caught fire after skidding off the runway at Kolwezi airport, the minister’s communications advisor reported. Isaac Nyemboto the media.
«The aircraft was coming from the capital, Kinshasa, when it skidded off the runway during landing at Kolwezi airport in Lualaba province. Moments later, the aircraft caught fire,» Nyembo said.
The passengers managed to leave on time, but lost all their luggage.
This is how the plane looked after the fire. Photo: @aviationbrkCuriously, the minister and other officials of the Central African country were flying to the city of Kolwezi to assess the situation at a mine that was the scene of Saturday’s an accident what cost the lives of 32 people.
The accident in Kolwezi
A regional official reported Sunday that the collapse of a bridge at a cobalt mine in Lualaba province left at least 32 informal miners dead.
As the bodies lay in a flooded area, it is expected that there will be more victims.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces more than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt supplyessential for batteries used in electric cars, many laptops and mobile phones.
It is estimated that more than 200,000 people work in the country’s giant illegal cobalt mines. The one that collapsed in Kolwezi – the capital of Lualaba – was known as mira Creation.
At least 32 dead in the Republic of Congo due to a collapse in a cobalt mine«Despite the formal ban on access to the site due to heavy rain and the risk of landslides, Illegal miners forced their way into the quarry«said provincial Interior Minister Roy Kaumba Mayonde.
He also reported that the miners running across the improvised bridgebuilt to cross a flooded ditch, caused its collapse.
A report by the government agency SAEMAPE, which monitors and assists mining cooperatives, suggested that the presence of soldiers at the mine had caused panic among informal miners.
Kalando had been at the center of a long dispute between illegal miners, a cooperative that was supposed to organize the excavations, and legal operators.
According to the report, the miners who fell «they piled on top of each other, causing deaths and injuries».
