OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa’s main miners union on Wednesday accused the mining company Gold Fields of negligence, a day after 12 workers were killed in an underground explosion at its Beatrix gold mine.
Two people were also burned, one seriously.
“Management acted irresponsibly by sending workers into a precarious, potentially dangerous situation,” said the spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Moferefere Lekorotsoana.
“This accident is within a year of a similar type of accident in the same mine. We cannot continue to subsidise the industry with our lives,” he said.
The accident on Tuesday was caused by a methane gas explosion about 850 metres (3_000 feet) below the surface when 4,000 miners were underground.
“Methane can be controlled, and the explosion is the result of negligence,” Lekotsoana said.
“Of great concern to us is that accidents continue to happen as the safety of workers is not taken as seriously as production.”
On May 15 last year, seven miners died at Beatrix mine, in the central Free State province, from a similar explosion.
Gold Fields Free State manager, Dana Roets, said the company had invested in advanced methane detectors after last year’s accident.
The NUM, which has about 270_000 members, met with Gold Fields officials late Tuesday.
Kevin Barnes, a Gold Fields official, said at least two of the victims were from neighbouring Mozambique and Swaziland. Inspectors from the Minerals and Energy Department were due to investigate the disaster, he said. Mining at great depths in South Africa is risky and accidents are common, despite better safety measures put in place in recent years.
In 1999, 313 miners were killed, while 372 died in 1998 and 424 in 1997.
The worst mining disaster in South Africa occurred in 1986 when 177 miners were killed.
ZA*NOW:
12 miners die in explosion May 9, 2001