At least six people have been killed and many others are feared dead after a tanzanite mine in northern Tanzania flooded due to heavy rains.

Saturday's accident occurred in Mererani, a mining area about 400km north of Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam.

"We have so far received six bodies and are still searching for others," a police official at the site said.

He said that the owners of the mine had informed the police that 87 miners were underground at the time of the flood.

Heavy rains

Henry Shekifu, the regional commissioner of police for Manyara, the province where the affected mines are located, said: "The government is trying to get equipment to the mines to drain the water in hopes of retrieving the men.

"There have been heavy rains for the last seven days in the area. Similar cases occurred in the past, but this is worse because it involves a lot of people," he said.

Hassan, one of the mine owners, said that five mines were flooded and that it weather on Saturday had been even worse than on previous days.

"We saw floating bodies and we recovered two bodies by ourselves," he said.

The Tanzanian government licenses the tanzanite mines but most miners work for themselves, normally using ropes to lower themselves into shafts dug by hand.

Safety fears

The mines amount to little more than holes hundreds of feet deep with few safety measures.

Tanzanite, a blue shimmering stone, is found only in northern Tanzania and the lure of striking riches has drawn thousands of miners to the area.

Tanzanian's mining sector has expanded rapidly over the past decade after it adopted liberal economic policies in the mid-1980s.

The east African nation is Africa's third-largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana, and is also rich in diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.

According to a development plan outlined by the government, the mining sector contributes less than three per cent of the nation's GDP but this rate is expected to reach 10 per cent by 2025.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Tanzanian miner.

Al-Jazeera