| Even less careful than they are at home, if that can be conceived. |
The accident occurred on February 18 at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia copper mine, located in Zambia’s Copperbelt province. China is the dominant operator of copper mines in Zambia, which in turn is one of the most important copper-producing nations in the world.
China’s mining operations in Zambia have been frequently criticized for having poor safety, environmental, and labor standards. Critics accuse the Zambian government of hesitating to confront Beijing or punish Chinese companies because Zambia is over $4 billion in debt to Chinese banks. Zambia defaulted on its massive debts to China in 2020 and restructured those debts in 2023.
Copper mining involves using acidic compounds to separate valuable copper from other minerals. The toxic waste left over from this process, known as “tailings,” is collected in a sealed reservoir. Depending on the processing method used, tailings can be incredibly poisonous, corrosive, or even radioactive.
Proper control and disposal of tailings is a perpetual source of controversy around industrial mining operations. The toxic residue is more or less permanent, so it constantly accumulates in a basin or well, which must be carefully monitored for leakage. Catastrophe results if the toxic material seeps into the surrounding environment.
On February 18, a tailings dam at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia mine collapsed, resulting in a worst-case calamity: 50 million liters of toxic slurry poured into a stream that connects to the vital Kafue River. This river provides water for plants, fish, animals, and about 12 million human inhabitants, including residents of the national capital, Lusaka. In fact, about 60% of Zambia’s population lives in the Kafue River basin.
Environmental activists called the toxic spill an “environmental disaster of catastrophic consequences” and pronounced the 930-mile-long Kafue River “totally dead.”
Huge numbers of dead fish began washing up on the river banks, wiping out the local fishing industry. Crops watered by the river withered and died. The Zambian military used planes and speedboats to dump hundreds of tons of lime into the river to neutralize the acid waste.
Adding insult to injury — in fact, adding both insult and injury — another Chinese mine suffered a smaller acid waste leak a few days later. A mine worker was killed at this second mine after falling into the acid. Local officials accused the Chinese mine owners of first attempting to conceal the smaller leak and then defying government orders to halt operations. Two managers from the second mine have been placed under arrest.
On February 24, the Zambian government ordered Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Ltd. to halt operations at three of its tailing storage dams until their embankments have been fully repaired.
Environment minister Mike Mposha also ordered the company to supply safe drinking water to communities affected by the toxic spill, and to take all necessary measures to restore the local soil.
Mposha ordered the company to “engage an independent environmental consultant to continuously monitor both surface and groundwater quality” and conduct a biodiversity assessment of the Kafue River, Mwambashi River, and Lusale Stream.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Sunday saw signs that the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia disaster has pushed China-Zambia relations to the breaking point.
University of Johannesburg research director Emmanuel Matambo said a watershed moment arrived when the Zambian government, previously reluctant to criticize Beijing in any way because of its titanic debts, spoke up against China’s handling of the copper mine catastrophe. Until now, even Zambian politicians who campaigned as staunch critics of China have always gone silent as soon as they’ve won office.
Matambo said decades-old criticism of China’s reckless environmental record is once again being heard in public now that a Chinese company has caused one of the worst ecological disasters in Zambia’s history.
“While this concern had died down around the 2010s, the Kafue spillage will revive it, and will shine a very unflattering light on Chinese investment in Zambia,” he said.