Sharon Hammond and Hazel Friedman
Four years after a high concentration of arsenic was first found in drinking water at Anglovaal’s New Consort gold mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga, the poison is alleged to have claimed its first victim.
An investigation into the mine started recently after 2 000 residents were poisoned by drinking water in October. The Weekly Mail first exposed poisoning in 1991.
Amos Manzini, a 38-year-old underground mine supervisor, died after complaining of severe stomach pains last Tuesday. And Richard Spoor, legal representative for the National Union of Mineworkers, said two children also possibly died as a result of the poisoning, but that this has not yet been confirmed.
Once absorbed by the body, Spoor said, arsenic was retained and built up until it reached a lethal dosage.
A district surgeon has performed a post-mortem on Manzini, but the result will only be known in a few weeks. Anglovaal representative Julian Gwillim said the mine had no medical records of Manzini complaining about stomach aches or headaches and that he could have died of natural causes. He would not comment on government and mine investigations into the poisonings until they were complete.
Spoor said most of the mining residents complained of numb fingertips and toes, stomach pains, headaches, muscle weakness, diarrhoea and skin rashes, and that there were increased chances of respiratory and other forms of
At the end of October, the drought forced residents to get their drinking water from boreholes, but arsenic levels as high as 0,7mg per litre were found by mine officials. The legal limit in South is 0,3mg per litre, while in the United States it is 0,1mg.
“The river feeding the mine is flowing again since the rains, and arsenic measurements in the water supply are now 0,2mg,” said Spoor.
But he warns the poisoned water supply is not as much of a problem as are the several hundred tons of raw arsenic powder being stored out in the open at the mine in ruptured, low-grade packaging. The M&G published details of a confidential occupational health survey which warned management at the Boksburg factory of Barlows Cat of the dangers to workers from poisonous particles emitted during welding operations. The report, completed in May, recommended extensive protective measures. But worker sources claimed management had ignored the report because safety measures were too
This week 23 workers were ordered to appear before a company disciplinary inquiry. Many are welders who had displayed skin rashes to the M&G, complaining of pain, lethargy and a foul nasal discharge.
They have been charged with unauthorised absence and with being late at work on Tuesday last week — the day they were first interviewed by the M&G. In a formal memorandum, Barlows management says “subsequent investigations into the matter revealed that these employees had converged outside the premises for a meeting concerning the company’s usage of flux core welding wire”.