Chaka rode the tremors for what seemed like an eternity, but he kept telling himself that his weariness proved that he still lived. The debris beneath him vibrated and tumbled, sometimes accumulating more rock from above. Chaka thanked god that none of the larger rocks hit him. Finally, when he felt he could bear it no longer, the tremors stopped. He listened.
In the utter darkness that surrounded him, Chaka began to make out screams and moans. He freed himself from the loose rocks on his battered body and began to crawl.
“Help me please!” a female voice cried out, louder than the rest.
Chaka crawled toward this voice, his one thought to reach the victim before her cries stopped.
“I’m coming!” he shouted back, choking on the thick dust.
Breathing became difficult. Chaka knew his own life was in danger, but he had no thought for his own safety now.
“I’m here!” the voice cried back, weaker than before.
Suddenly something soft touched Chaka’s hand and gripped it.
“I’m here!” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“My feet! I can’t move them.”
“Let me look. Ha! Ha! Sorry, I can’t see anything at all, but you know what I mean!”
Chaka kept up the light banter as he cleared rocks from the woman’s body and made his way toward where her feet should have been.
Chaka was acutely aware of other voices, not far beyond the woman’s body, but he suddenly felt wetness and strips of flesh where the woman’s ankle should have been.
“Agh!” she screamed, before fainting.
It didn’t take more than a few moments for Chaka to understand that her feet had been torn off. He took her in his arms and staggered toward the voices.
“Over here!” he cried.
Suddenly a hand clutched his elbow, but it was that of the woman in his arms.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Are my children and husband safe?”
“I don’t know. My name is Chaka.”
“I know you. Chaka, grim-faced miner?”
“Yes.”
“You are a good … .”
Chaka stumbled on, twice falling. He couldn’t put the dead woman’s body down. But something happened. The darkness suddenly became a thick fog of yellow light. It seemed to all the world as if Chaka walked underwater, because the dust was so thick that it swirled like the eddies in a plunge pool. He couldn’t see further than the end of his nose.
“Does somebody have a torch?” he cried out.
“I don’t know how, but a light came on!” a male voice, not very distant, replied. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I am fine, but I have a woman. I think … she’s dead.”
“There are three of us!” another voice replied. “Keep coming.”
Hands lifted the woman’s body from Chaka, and he sat down on something hard.
“Are there any others?” he gasped.
The light flicked off, throwing them into darkness again.
“What’s happening!” the woman’s voice cried, her tone rising.
“Calm down!” a male voice said. “We’re alive.”
“We don’t know if there are others,” a second male voice replied to Chaka. “I came from further away. I thought I heard the sound of rushing water.” The voice paused, as if taking stock of the situation. “How did you get here?”
“I was washed in from the river,” Chaka answered, grateful that somebody had asked a sensible question. “I saw a gaping hole in the side of the cliff below Mis Mayu Fajacha. I didn’t see any others.”
“I was washed in too!” the woman’s voice said.
“And me!” the second man’s voice added.
“I don’t remember,” the last man said, “but we must be underground.”
The light flicked back on again, and this time the dust hung less thickly in the air. Chaka could see the three people beside him, and they all clutched each other tightly.
“Let us hold on to each other and try to find others!” Chaka suggested.
“What’s your name?” a tall man with a long face, but a cake of mud for hair, replied.
All five people looked like clay-figures in a children’s toy box.
“Chaka. What is yours?”
“Tanik. You’re the mine foreman?”
“Yes.”
“I worked in one of your teams, in the lower seams. It was my day off!”
“Your family?” Chaka asked.
“I don’t know! I pray they are alright.”
“Help me carry this woman’s body!” Chaka said. “If we leave it, we may never find her again.”
As the dust slowly cleared, more survivors began to congregate around a growing pool of water. Above the babbling voices could now be heard the sound of crying children and distressed animals; howls of dogs, lamaka and beasts of the jungle.
“At least we’re not alone!” Chaka pointed out. “Everybody, gather around!”
By now they had collected together forty-two survivors. Two children arrived, covered in mud, crying, and quickly found comfort in the arms of older women.
“I am Chaka! Some of you may remember me as the mine foreman. We are clearly underground, somewhere in the cliffs below Mis Mayu Fajacha. We have food, water, air and even light, so there is no immediate danger. We simply need to gather all our resources and begin to search for a way out.”
“Do you think there is one?” a man asked.
“Tanik and I are going to follow this stream. It may lead to a way out. I want the rest of you to stay here and take it in turns gathering anything you can find to eat. We don’t know when darkness will fall, however, so at all times ten of you must rest here, and the others must not go out of their sight.”
The light flicked off again.
“Ignore it!” Chaka said. “Every moment counts. Come on Tanik.”
Sound travelled far in the underground space, and it took the two men several hours to locate the running water. They paddled toward its source in utter darkness.
“It’s fresh from the ground,” Tanik noted. “I don’t think this will lead out.”
“We must try,” Chaka replied to Tanik, who he could now see was tall and wiry.

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