SA mines face shutdown over deaths

South Africa’s powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) may shut the sector down for a day to protest a recent surge in mining deaths, Business Day reported on Friday.

Quoting union spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka, it said NUM would decide next week if it would embark on such action.

“The NUM is seriously considering the possibility of a national day of mourning across the mining industry,” Seshoka was quoted as saying.

NUM officials were not immediately available for comment.

A worker was killed in a locomotive accident on Thursday at Harmony Gold’s Masimong mine, and last week two were killed at Gold Fields’s KDC mine.

The department of mineral resources says deaths have risen over 25% in the first quarter of this year to 38, compared with the same period last year. But Business Day said NUM alleged the death toll was in fact closer to 50.

Labour relations in South Africa’s key mining sector are fraught and mine safety is a massive issue, especially as the gold companies have to take their operations deeper and deeper.—Reuters