20120530
AFP
The death toll from a massive stampede that broke out in northeastern Zambia when 5,000 people jostled for casual work at a fishing factory has risen to nine, a local official said Tuesday.

Provincial minister Freedom Sikazwe said the ninth victim died in hospital late Monday of wounds sustained during the stampede earlier in the day.

The local official added that six of the dozens still hospitalised remained in critical condition.

Job seekers reportedly became impatient when security guards delayed opening the plant's gates and forced their way into the premises of Great Lakes Products, a fish wholesaler in Mpulungu town, sparking the stampede.

Only about half a million people in Zambia -- a country of 13 million inhabitants and Africa's largest copper producer -- are in formal employment, according to official figures.