Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), a unit of diversified miner Vedanta Resources, has closed part of its openpit mine as a portion of the pit is about to collapse, the chief executive officer said late on Thursday.
KCM predicted that part of the Nchanga Open Pit in Chingola in Zambia’s Copperbelt area will cave in "anytime" in the next five days after geotechnical assessments detected some slope instability.
The slough – or caving in of the ground – manifested so far through tension cracks opening up is likely to stretch approximately 350 m and the estimated volume of the area involved is eight-million cubic metres, CEO Christopher Sheppard said in a statement.