Another mining pit caves in, pork-knocker dies

A 58-year-old pork-knocker of Matthew’s Ridge, North West District (NWD) died on Monday in a mining pit that collapsed at Highwood Backdam (NWD).

Dead is Christopher Bumbury. Preliminary investigations by the police revealed that the southern wall of the dug-out mining pit collapsed and covered the victim.

The wall measured 15 feet in width, 20 feet in length and 22 feet in depth.

Bumbury and another co-worker Hilton Ward were digging gravel at the bottom of the southern wall at the time of the accident.  Ward managed to escape and he returned with two others to search of Bumbury’s body.

They found him 45 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at the Port Kaituma District Hospital at 13:45 hrs the following day.