3,000 workers trapped in South African mine

by Edmund Jenks | October 3, 2007 at 03:26 pm

422 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

UPDATE - 6:30PM PST - AP REPORT

Some 3,000 gold miners were trapped a mile underground Wednesday when
falling pipe damaged the elevator, but the company began rescuing
workers through a smaller shaft and estimated it would take 10 hours to
get them all out.

Peter Bailey, health and safety chairman for the National Mineworkers Union,
said the first 74 men reached the surface shortly after 1 a.m.
Thursday. "They are all doing well," he said.

Sethiri Thibile, one of the first miners rescued, clutched a cold beef sandwich
and a bottle of water he was given when he reached the surface.

"Most of the people are scared and we also have some women miners there underground," said Thibile.

"It‘s going to take some time because we are doing it carefully," he said,
adding the rescue could take 10 hours. "Nobody is injured, nobody is
hurt, nothing like that at all."

----

Miners are trapped when the only exit gets blocked - elevator shaft(s) gets disrupted!

3,000 workers trapped in South African mine

By Associated Press -

Last Updated 3:08 pm PDT Wednesday, October 3, 2007

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- About 3,000 miners were trapped underground Wednesday when a water pipe burst and probably caused a shaft to collapse in a South African gold mine, union officials said.

An official with Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine near Johannesburg said company would be able to evacuate the trapped workers over the next 24 hours.

Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said on MSNBC that officials have been in contact with the trapped workers and have been sending them food and water.

He said the company could evacuate the miners over the next day 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, according to Dow Jones news service.

He said that the workers -- consisting of the mine's entire morning shift -- became trapped after damage to a shaft made it unsafe for workers to use.

The spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, Lesiba Seshoka, said the managers were meeting with union members.

"It's a terrible situation," Seshoka told The Associated Press. "The only exit is blocked, probably by a fall of ground."

Officials said burst water pipe probably caused soil in the underground shaft to collapse. Gold mine shafts in South Africa are typically about 1 1/ 2 miles below ground, he said.

The union feared the men could be trapped without oxygen because of collapsed ground, or impeded by rock falls and mud slides by the burst ware pipe.

Seshoka charged the shafts had not been properly maintained.

"Our guys there tell us that they have raised concerns about the whole issue of maintenance of shafts with the mine (managers) but they have not been attended to," he said.

Mine managers and owners of the South African-owned business could not be reached for comment late Wednesday night.

Last year, 199 mineworkers died in accidents, mostly rock falls, the government Mine Health and Safety Council reported in September.