Those responsible for the Merriespruit slimes dam disaster have been fined … a pittance. Bronwen Jones and Justin Pearce report
Harmony Gold Mine, found guilty of culpable homicide in the Merriespruit slimes dam disaster, is to pay a fine equivalent to one fifth of one percent of the mine’s post-tax profits for last year.
The homicide charges arise from the death of 17 people, who died when the slimes dam collapsed, sending an avalanche of mud through Merriespruit, a suburb of Virginia in the Free State goldfields, in February 1994. Six hundred people were injured, and R80-million in damage to property was recorded.
Last week the Virginia Regional Court fined Harmony R120 000 for its part in causing the mudslide. The mine’s profits for 1995 were around R56-million after tax.
Homicide charges were dropped against former mine manager Dan Jordaan, who resigned a year ago from the company, metallurgical engineer Johan Mouton, and acting plant superintendent Wayne Hatton-Jones. The three were found guilty of contravening Section 37 of the Minerals Act.
In an earlier trial, engineering company Fraser Alexander, which built the slimes dam, was fined R150 000, and further fines were imposed on employees.
An expert in construction law, Philip Loots, expressed surprise that the people found guilty were not jailed.
The fines imposed upon them were a “pittance”, says Loots, who has been examining the behaviour of Fraser Alexander and Harmony at a unique conference in Johannesburg this week.
With the ink barely dry on the Merriespruit verdicts, the spectacular slimes dam collapse entered the realm of case studies used to teach engineers how to do it better next time.
The World of Construction Disasters, a conference billed as the first of its kind in Southern Africa, revealed a sordid tale of collective stupidity, greed or weakness behind the high-cost failures of modern science — including the slimes dam disaster. In almost all cases warnings were ignored and rules broken.
Loots, author of Construction Law and Related Issues, gave a detailed assessment of the behaviour of Fraser Alexander and of Harmony in the Merriespruit incident. He explained how a slimes dam should be constructed and how the one at Merriespruit was actually made.
Loots said that Merriespurit was a dam with “high potential for harm”. “The place where a dam is situated is a factor that determines the seriousness of the consequences.”
He said it was clear in the past the state “drew no distinction between high- and low- potential harm” in its approach to safety. Building a dam and community only 300m apart is unacceptable.
“Any residential area that close to a dam would be at risk, even if it was slightly uphill,” says Loots, referring to Fraser Alexander’s proposals to build a slimes dam at Fleurhof, west of Johannesburg.
Engineering literature is stuffed full of case studies revealing the potential for danger of slimes dams, but Merriespruit had so many direct warnings it is impossible to see how the engineers ignored them. From 1992, water flowed periodically from the dam to the residential area, because it was downstream. On 11 February 1994, 12 days before the final breach, a pipeline burst and slime flowed as far as the houses.
The place where the dam wall finally collapsed had been evident as a problem area on satellite photographs since 1988. A low point had developed because of a 590m gap between “outlet stations” where, Loots says, “distances of less than 400m are preferred”.
Loots said employees also falsified pumping records after the disaster.
“They had not counted on Landsat images. We
used satellite pictures to reconstruct the truth.”
Loots explained that small slimes dams failures are regular occurrences in South Africa, but the larger ones should be used as permanent reminders of the mud’s destructive power. The Simmer & Jack failure of 1937 engulfed a train; there was another at Grootvlei in 1956, while in 1974 the Bafokeng failure produced a “mass of slime that was 800m wide and 10m deep four kilometres away from the breach”.
Loots said: “An example must be set. The fines on Harmony and Fraser Alexander were a pittance. They should be 10 times as much. Overseas there would have been jail sentences for negligence of this scale.”
There was a shocked hush when some delegates saw pictures of the devastation at Aberfan in Wales for the first time. The history of that disaster, which killed 144 people 30 years ago, was a catalogue of ignored warnings, just like Merriespruit.