Qualla: 2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster

2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Kafue River died overnight. That is how people downstream described what happened on 18 February 2025, when a tailings dam at a copper mine owned by Chinese state-owned enterprise Sino-Metals Leach Zambia collapsed in the Copperbelt Province of northern Zambia. Approximately 50 million liters of acidic, highly toxic waste poured into the river that supplies drinking water to roughly five million people, irrigates farms that feed millions more, and sustains fishing communities stretching hundreds of kilometers downstream. The Kafue is not just any waterway. The Engineering Institution of Zambia calls it the country's most important river -- 1,576 kilometers long, draining a basin where approximately 12 million of Zambia's 20 million citizens live.

2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster: Copper's Price

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Zambia ranks among the world's top ten copper producers, and the Copperbelt Province in the north hosts dozens of mining operations. Chinese companies have maintained a dominant presence in the copper extraction industry, a position intertwined with broader economic ties -- Zambi...

2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster: A River Goes Silent

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The contamination caused immediate harm to communities along the Kafue. Authorities shut down the entire water supply to Kitwe, a city of approximately 700,000 residents located near the mine. Groundnut and maize fields along the river were destroyed, with several harvests report...

2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster: Lime from the Sky

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema declared the situation a crisis and requested international expert assistance. The response had a surreal quality: the Zambian Air Force was deployed to drop hundreds of tons of lime into the river to neutralize the acid, while speedboats appl...

2025 Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Dam Disaster: An Alarm That Rang Too Late

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Zhang Peiwen, chairman of Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, met with Zambian government ministers after the disaster. According to a company-released transcript, Zhang offered an apology and acknowledged that the collapse had "rung a big alarm for Sino-Metals Leach and the mining industr...