A popular myth is that there was a river snake which was held responsible for the floodings and deaths during the early development work at Roan Antelope Mine. Roan's workers suffered such high illness and mortality rates from malaria and blackwater fever, as well as from typhus, dysentery and pneumonia, that the mine had great difficulty keeping African laborers from one week to the next. It became common knowledge that the local Lamba attributed these problems to a giant snake, which wriggled along the river and mine shafts causing floodings and cave-ins, and spewing poisonous gas. By 1928, construction of the plant and township had begun soon after reserves of approximately 20 million tons of copper had been found. The flooding problem was solved when the Luanshya River was channeled and its swamps drained during the 1929-32 anti-malaria campaign.