/ 13 January 2007

Illegal miners still missing after Barberton rockfall

The search for five illegal miners missing in an abandoned Barberton mine would probably be called off until daylight, Mpumalanga police said on Friday night.

Superintendent Mtsholi Bhembe said police would probably stop searching in the dark and start again on Saturday morning. The men have been missing for more than a week.

”We can’t confirm that they are dead yet … They are still missing,” said Bhembe.

The five miners were reported missing on Friday by their families, after two other miners said they had died in a rockfall underground while illegally mining in the Barberton area.

The surviving miners, one of them injured in the rockfall, told the victims’ families, who in turn told police on Friday. The accident reportedly happened on Wednesday last week.

”They say five died but I can’t confirm it,” said Constable Jabu Ndubane on Friday.

Police officers were driving to the scene at the abandoned Sheba mine on an inaccessible mountain top after hearing reports of the deaths, but have been struggling to establish the exact location of the rockfall.

Tony de Beer, general manager for Barberton Mines, said he had heard about the incident on Friday when it had been reported to the police. Barberton Mines owns the abandoned workings.

He said the illegal miners initially took the police to the abandoned Fairview mine but could not find the right place, and then to Sheba. Both areas were abandoned in the 1950s and are regarded as very dangerous.

De Beer said he refused to allow his staff to be involved in any rescue due to the danger. ”It’s abandoned workings and they shouldn’t be there,” he said of the illegal miners.

He said the mine management tried to block off the abandoned areas, but the illegal miners repeatedly broke in. ”They are a real nuisance at the moment.”

Illegal miners break into disused gold mines to mine there themselves, often working for syndicates, and may spend weeks underground at a time.

In October, a team of rescuers spent days underground at the Sheba mine, unsuccessfully trying to find an illegal miner who was reported to have died in a fall underground. — Sapa