"131 miners stranded underground at KCM after power trip out", 23 December 2019.

A power surge at Konkola Copper Mines...saw 131 miners stranded underground for over three hours...But KCM Provisional Liquidator Milingo Lungu says there were no miners who were trapped in the cages, and explained that there were repair works done to the cages..."The delay and fixing was done as a safety precaution....Further, there is no issue of injuries or fatalities," said Lungu...

But KCM sources in Chingola told News Diggers earlier that the incident happened twice on the same day at No.1 Shaft, barely 10 days after another incident was recorded at No.4 Shaft..."...there are emergency safety procedures that are immediately initiated to ensure that the miners who are stuck remain safe. So that was done and they managed to take them out...But unfortunately, this is not the first time..." the source said. The source revealed that KCM has recorded frequent accidents and faults because the major installations at the mine had continued operating without maintenance, since government took over the business units from Vedanta Resources Ltd. "There is an investigation that is currently going on, trying to ascertain what is causing this. But really, what is obvious is that we are sitting at a situation where all the infrastructure that had not been serviced under the previous ownership of the mine have remained in use without any major repairs..."

...Although it was placed under provisional liquidation after a government takeover, KCM has continued to operate under the leadership of Milingo Lungu, a status Vedanta Resources is challenging through arbitration against shareholders ZCCM-IH...Meanwhile sporadic cases of demonstrations have been reported at the KCM headquarters in Chingola where the frustrated and impatient mining community is accusing government officials and some ruling party seniors of making profits through contracts from the mine, at their expense.