A SECOND mine disaster in a week has killed one gold miner and injured 10 in an underground rock burst at South Africa’s Driefontein gold mine. One miner was still missing after the tremor, which hit the mine at a depth of 2 500m and measured 2.5 on the Richter Scale. The accident comes nearly a week after four miners were killed and four injured by an earth tremor at the Kloof gold mine, which is also owned by Gold Fields. A small tremor measuring 0.5 on the Richter scale can equal the force of 100kg of explosives underground. According to statistics from the country’s Director of Mines, 315 people lost their lives in mining accidents in 1999, down from 744 ten years earlier. – Reuters