As both the APC and people of Kono are gearing up for the development of Kono, there are equally environmental and health hazards hovering over the people of Kono resulting from the activities of Koidu Holdings.<\/p>\n
One of the looming dangers that now poses a life threat to the people of Kono was experienced by this reporter whilst on a family visit to Koidu Town on 31st<\/sup> August 2010. As usual, Koidu Holdings South Africa (KHSA) in their vigorous mining activity to blast rocks to extract diamonds have been causing a lot of danger ranging from environmental hazards such as infertility to the topmost soil, air pollution and worst of it all the loud blasts that have the potential to terminate a month old pregnancy or even destroy the hearing of a human.<\/p>\n The blast on 31 August by Koidu Holdings sent a shocking and thundering sound into the spines of the residents of Kono. This peculiar blast sound which left many Kono people in consternation has been described by many residents in the township as the first of its kind since the inception of Koidu Holdings mining activity in the district. The resounding blast sound in the ears of Kono residents can be compared to the bomb shelling of \u201cOlu Lungi\u201d during the 1999 January 6th<\/sup> rebel invasion of Freetown.<\/p>\n According to some concerned Kono indigenes who expressed their fear to Sierra Express Media, \u201cif such enormous sound waves of Koidu Holdings blasting continue as the previous one, our lives are not only in danger but the ultimate fear is for our weak houses which have were burnt by rebels will collapse.\u201d In the midst of this fear being expressed by the town\u2019s people, one redundant Koidu Holdings mining engineer, Sahr Gborie confided in this reporter that the normal blasting exercise is being done within 250 meters blast envelope. He further explained that the heavy sound heard on that day between the hours of 7 to 8 pm was being done in close range and that might have been the cause for the thunderous sound to have impacted on the entire Koidu town. People staying as far as Farandu felt the trembling sound wave beneath the earth like an earthquake was about to be erupted.<\/p>\n In this same vein, residents of Tankoro who have their houses very close the KHSA blast site have intimated to this reporter that even the resettlement project promised them has not been forthcoming. And even those that have benefited from the recent resettling projects are still complaining of inadequate housing facilities as compared their former houses. Some of the beneficiaries of the Koidu Holdings resettlement have lost the original comfort of their houses in terms of architecture and insufficient water supply. Emmanuel Sahr Tommy, an affected property owner in Tankoro told SEM that \u201ceven though the company contributes revenue into the pockets of chiefs and the Government; as ordinary citizens of Kono we have suffered the brunt of Koidu Holdings activity the most, and we don\u2019t deserve such nefarious treatment from the Government, they owe allegiance for providing security for them\u201d he ended.<\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As both the APC and people of Kono are gearing up for the development of Kono, there are equally environmental and health hazards hovering over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,1],"tags":[4914,1053,1054,1007],"class_list":["post-13366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-blasting-in-kono","tag-koidu-holdings","tag-koidu-town","tag-kono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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