News / Regional
20 kg gold ore sparks a gold rush in Shangani
30 Sep 2012 at 05:06hrs | Views
THERE was a hive of activity at the usually sleepy Shangani centre last week as hordes of business people from as far as Harare streamed the area with metal detectors to scramble for gold with local villagers following the discovery of huge deposits a mere half a metre from the surface.
The gold rush started last Thursday after an unidentified businessman with the assistance of other men managed to detect gold close to the Bulawayo-Harare highway in an area near Shangani centre about 100 kilometres from Bulawayo.
It is reported that some lucky panners walked away with over 20 kilogrammes (kgs) of gold ore.
"A man driving an X5 BMW came accompanied by five men the day before yesterday (last Thursday) with metal detectors and managed to detect the gold and hired an excavator from a local white miner and managed to get about 20kgs. After the discovery the number of people seeking gold swelled with most town dwellers coming in flashy cars to jostle for the ore with villagers.
"The ore was so close that one only had to dig the top soil and come across a fortune and only yesterday one guy managed to get 10kgs and another one picked four kgs. I also wanted to join the gold rush but unfortunately I was busy at work. I did manage to go to the site today (yesterday) but the ore seems to be exhausted but there is another area close by where there has been another discovery. The gold panners occasionally fought each other for the ore and yesterday riot police came with dogs and fired teargas canisters to disperse them," said a Group Five employee, a South African company involved in road construction.
When the Sunday News crew visited the first gold field the place was deserted and bread, soft drink cans, water containers and empty teargas canisters were strewn all over the place and it was visible that a battle had taken place between the police and the panners.
The gold rush started last Thursday after an unidentified businessman with the assistance of other men managed to detect gold close to the Bulawayo-Harare highway in an area near Shangani centre about 100 kilometres from Bulawayo.
It is reported that some lucky panners walked away with over 20 kilogrammes (kgs) of gold ore.
"The ore was so close that one only had to dig the top soil and come across a fortune and only yesterday one guy managed to get 10kgs and another one picked four kgs. I also wanted to join the gold rush but unfortunately I was busy at work. I did manage to go to the site today (yesterday) but the ore seems to be exhausted but there is another area close by where there has been another discovery. The gold panners occasionally fought each other for the ore and yesterday riot police came with dogs and fired teargas canisters to disperse them," said a Group Five employee, a South African company involved in road construction.
When the Sunday News crew visited the first gold field the place was deserted and bread, soft drink cans, water containers and empty teargas canisters were strewn all over the place and it was visible that a battle had taken place between the police and the panners.
Source - SN
