Tin the din of Uis history

IT is hard to believe that the sleepy town of Uis at the edge of the Namib Desert was the hub of a mining boom that boasted the largest hard rock tin mine in the world.

The tin mining boom, which lasted longer than half a century, started in 1911 when tin was discovered by a Dr Paul, of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.In 1923, August Stauch who discovered the diamonds at Kolmanskop, bought the known tin deposits in the Usakos, Karibib, Omaruru and Uis districts and set up Namib Tin Mines Ltd.During the Great Depression – from 1930 to 1933 – no tin was produced and in 1938 the Uis mine was acquired by German industrial conglomerate Krupp. However, large scale development plans for the Uis mine were brought to a standstill with the outbreak of World War II in 1939.After the war the mine was sold to Angus Munro, whose death in a plane crash further delayed the implementation of production plans. In 1958, Imkor Tin (Pty) Ltd bought Uis and other properties that belonged to Namib Tin Mines, and installed an extraction plant for tin ore that produced about 35 tonnes an hour. In 1966 the company enlarged the plant to handle approximately 100 tonnes an hour and built the town of Uis.In early 1980, the extraction plant was again enlarged to process 140 tonnes per hour on a 24 hour seven days a week production schedule.The tin boom ended in late 1990 when tin prices collapsed on the global market and the mine’s production was drastically slashed, leading to job losses and a reduction in the quality of life of Uis residents. Imkor Tin, a subsidiary of Iscor South Africa, closed down the mine in 1991 and the town became a ghost settlement virtually overnight. The tin-bearing sediment at Uis lies in a 32 km wide belt stretching from the town to Cape Cross at the coast, a distance of 130 km. Uis was proclaimed a village in 1996, after Namibia Base Metals (NBM), bought the old mining houses and buildings through businessman Albert Weitz. A brick-making factory and several tourist lodges, bed & breakfasts and tourist craft markets, for those traveling to the Bandberg and environs, breathed new life into the town.Since the mine’s closure, no environmental and land rehabilitation has been done and the mine dumps, open pits, structures and buildings stand abandoned. Today tourism operators take clients up onto the white mine dumps to view the sunset over the Brandberg mountains. One of the bigger open pits is permanently flooded and is known as the Uis Lake, the cool waters of which is used by local children as a swimming spot. Meanwhile, the open pits and abandoned structures stand as unsightly reminders of once boom times and pose a danger to people as many of these decaying structures are on the verge of collapse.