The young miner already recognised the sound of dogs as a terrifying harbinger of death but the dull thud of the helicopter blades was something new.
Minutes later a Zimbabwean air force helicopter swept over the hundreds of fleeing illegal diamond miners and mowed down dozens with machine-gun fire. After that the police arrived and unleashed the dogs that tore into the diggers, killing some and mutilating others. The police fired teargas to drive the miners out of their shallow tunnels and shot them down as they emerged.
How many died in the assault two weeks ago is not clear but the miners say it was at least scores. Some bodies remain unclaimed and unidentified in Mutare hospital mortuary.
"First we heard the helicopter and we knew it wouldn't be good but I thought it would just deliver soldiers," said the young miner, a former student who gave his name only as Hopewell.
"Then it came over us and started shooting. There was a man next to me, he had been digging near me, and the bullet went right through his head. Everyone was in panic. People ran but they didn't want to leave their finds behind so they were stopping to grab them and getting shot ... The police were waiting for us with the dogs. I was lucky. A dog ran for me but there was this woman, she was slower than me and it attacked her. I don't know what happened to her. I went back to my diggings a few days later but she hasn't come back."
The police and military have for weeks been conducting a bloody campaign, which Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has described as "resembling a war", to drive thousands of illegal miners out of a recently discovered diamond field that some in the industry believe might be the richest in years.