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Title: 3,200 Miners Trapped in S Africa Shaft Collapse Post by: MuffyBee on October 03, 2007, 06:58:02 PM Shaft Collapse Traps 3,200 Miners
Underground in South Africa DOW JONES NEWSWIRES October 3, 2007 6:14 p.m. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119144465063548064.html?mod=googlenews_wsj About 3,200 miners are trapped at a South African gold mine owned by Harmony Gold Mining Ltd., though no injuries have been reported. Speaking on MSNBC, Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said the workers -- consisting of the mine's entire morning shift -- became trapped after damage to a shaft made it unsafe for workers to use. Mr. Briggs said Harmony has been in contact with the trapped workers and has been sending them food and water. He added the company would be able to evacuate the trapped workers over the next 24 hours using a smaller cage in another shaft, but the process would be a slow one. "It's a case of getting a large number of people up in cages," he told MSNBC. The South African Press Association reported that there were other outlets for workers, some of whom were making their way to shafts in an adjacent AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. mine. The National Union of Mineworkers, or NUM, said the mine workers had been trapped since 10 a.m. local time, but reports of the accident didn't surface until 9 p.m., SAPA reported. There was no emergency exit in the shaft, which had "not been maintained for ages," NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka charged in a statement issued on Wednesday night. Title: Re: 3,200 Miners Trapped in S Africa Shaft Collapse Post by: MuffyBee on October 04, 2007, 09:21:03 AM 1,200 trapped, 2,000 freed at mine
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/10/04/carletonville.mine/ CARLETONVILLE, South Africa (CNN) -- More than 2,000 workers have been freed after an accident at a South African gold mine left them stuck 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) underground but about 1,200 people remain trapped, officials say. (snipped) The workers were trapped in the cavernous mine -- which is built like an underground city complete with trains, trucks and cars -- when the power source was knocked out, disabling the elevators leading to the surface at about 6 a.m. Wednesday (0400 GMT), South Africa's ambassador to the United States, Welile Nhlapo told CNN. Harmony Gold Mining Company President Graham Briggs, whose company oversees mining operations there, said a large compressed air pipe fell down a shaft, knocking out power. (snipped) Although Sheshoka said he could not speak specifically about the conditions at the Elandstrand mine, he pointed to what he called South Africa's generally poor mine safety record. According to an official South African government Web site, 202 workers died in mine accidents in 2005, with another 3,961 suffering injuries. "We're not proud of those statistics at all," Briggs said, in response to the nationwide numbers. "At Harmony, we have improved over the last three years but we need to keep working at it and keep improving it." In the past decade mine safety across South Africa has shown improvement. advertisement According to the government's Web site, the 2005 safety numbers were a great improvement from 1995, when 533 miners died and 7,000 were injured. Title: Re: 3,200 Miners Trapped in S Africa Shaft Collapse Post by: MuffyBee on October 04, 2007, 06:12:17 PM Last of 3,200 Trapped South African Miners Freed
Thursday, October 04, 2007 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299459,00.html CARLETONVILLE, South Africa — The last of 3,200 miners trapped for more than 24 hours in a deep mine shaft were brought to safety late Thursday, ending one of South Africa's biggest ever rescue operations, officials said. snipped A pressurized air pipe snapped at the mine near Johannesburg and tumbled down a shaft Wednesday, extensively damaging an elevator. Some of those stranding more than a mile underground had gone down Tuesday for the night shift. The trapped workers were being brought to the surface in a second, smaller cage in another shaft that can hold about 75 miners at a time, about half the normal passenger capacity. Most of the miners who emerged into the blinding sunlight looked dazed and exhausted. snipped he mine owner, Harmony Gold Mining Co., and South Africa's minerals and energy minister vowed to improve safety in one of the country's most important industries after the accident prompted allegations the industry cut safety corners and didn't properly maintain the mine. The union threatened unspecified "industrial action" if its safety demands were not met. In a message to mining bosses, it said it would "hit their pockets big time in the near future. ------------------------------------------------------- All of the workers got out of this mine this time. There were at least 3,000 workers in the mine. The potential for disaster is there. |