More than 3,000 stuck in SA mine

reply to post by JacKatMtn


I'm not so sure. In record-high times, wouldn't one want to be as safe as possible, since mine closure means lots of lost money?

Jeese, recently these mine stories are popping up on what seems like a monthly basis. How long have humans been mining? Thousands of years? What's going on?

Originally posted by pjslug
Knowing the way these blood diamond mines work in South Africa, I'm surprised they aren't going to blast the mine with the people still in it. It would be cheaper for them than having to pay out on the injuries. Sad and horrible, but probably true.

-snip-

Seriously. Read the article before you make a stupid comment like this. Firstly its a gold mine, secondly, there are no 'blood diamonds' mined in SA. Please at least read the relevant material regarding a post before you comment.

mod edit: removed personal attack

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[edit on 10/4/2007 by Gools]

Originally posted by The_Modulus
"You are an idiot. Seriously. Read the article before you make a stupid comment like this. Firstly its a gold mine, secondly, there are no 'blood diamonds' mined in SA. Please at least read the relevant material regarding a post before you comment."

I think thats against the T&C, This is meant to be the home of debate not insults.

There are no blood diamonds mined in S.Africa right?
Where do you get your information on this?

Has the health and safety record of the entire South African Mining industry undergone radical overhaul overnight?
How do you know The poster did not read the article first?

He seemed merely to be responding with "his views" on the incident, looking at the big picture of the whole mining industry in that continent. I thought that what ATS was about? Debate and bringing all the relevant information together.

He seemed to have brought something to the discussion, namely the sad fact that indeed today corporations do make judgements about the "cost" of human life and decide how much to spend on safety against the cost involved, and the number of employees it protects per $ spent.

Thin, thirsty men lacking company ID cards began straggling out of the shafts, their eyes blinking from the sting of the sun. They were gold pirates, illegal miners who spend months at a time in conditions so unforgiving that, when one dies of exhaustion or poisonous mine gases, his body is simply left in the shaft with a note listing his name and next of kin.

The pirates pay bribes of about $200 to security guards and other legitimate employees to go down shafts, then stay underground for months at a time. Without safety equipment, they are vulnerable to lethal - and potentially explosive - mine gases. Smoking cigarettes is common, in flagrant violation of mine safety rules.

The history of the gold industry is inextricable from that of South Africa. The discovery of the world's richest gold reefs in the 1880s drove a mad land rush toward Johannesburg, known as the "City of Gold." The mines' need for cheap, plentiful labor underpinned the racial laws that eventually became apartheid.

Truth Out

More than 100 miners were believed to have died Wednesday night in one of South Africa's largest gold mines when the cables controlling an underground train snapped, sending the cars hurtling down a 7,000-foot vertical shaft onto an elevator, industry officials said today.

"Pieces of flesh were scattered all over the floor as a two-floor mining carriage was crushed into a one-floor tin box," James Motlatsi, president of the 339,000-member National Union of Mineworkers, was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

Vaal Reefs officials and investigators said steel safety blocks that should have broken the 12-ton train's fall were inexplicably missing from Shaft No. 2, where the accident took place.
"Nothing like that can be anything more than negligence," Mr. Motlatsi said. "The safety mechanisms were not in place."

Mining officials say some 69,000 mine workers, most them black, have been killed in industrial accidents since 1911. Between 600 and 900 miners are killed and 15,000 badly injured each year in South African mines. The National Union of Mineworkers, the country's largest black labor union, has campaigned over the years for greater mine safety.

NY Times

and finally the last sentence on this quote states it all, Truly there is blood on all gold sold!!

Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world-the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates just one percent of the world's labor force is engaged in mining, while the industry accounts for five percent of on-the-job fatalities. Rock falls, tunnel collapses, fires, heat exhaustion, and other dangers claim the lives of over 15,000 miners every year. (Miners in the notoriously hazardous coal mines in China may account for as many as half of these deaths annually.)

In 1996, Pik Botha, the South African Minister for Mineral and Energy Affairs at the time, estimated that each ton of gold mined costs 1 life and 12 serious injuries.

No Dirty Gold Org


I am struggling to find what you brought to the thread, could you enlighten me?
Maybe I didnt read your posts source material well enough, or sorry there is none, but I still seem lost.

I hope you never just brought personal tirade to the board and bullying?

On the topic of this actual event it seems thankfully that most of the miners have been rescued, however as shown above how many are actually down there illegally who will never be found is another concern.

Rescuers are slowly bringing to the surface thousands of workers trapped for hours in a South African gold mine.

By midday (1000GMT) some 2,000 had been freed from the Elandsrand mine, 80km (50 miles) west of Johannesburg.

BBC

Kind Regards

Elf.

Back to the rescue :

1,200 trapped, 2,000 freed at mine

CARLETONVILLE, South Africa (CNN) -- More than 2,000 workers have been freed after an accident at a South African gold mine left them stuck 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) underground but about 1,200 people remain trapped, officials say.

"I'm happy now because we are out and we are alive," said Granny Makau, one of the miners who was trapped inside Elandstrand New Mine, north of Johannesburg. "No one died so we are happy."

Great news

Let's hope this statement by officials stays true

no workers were killed or injured during the ordeal.

3000 is an unbelievable huge number. hopefully they'll get all of them out safely!

Originally posted by juicebox

I hope they all make it out safely.

Not long ago, I read a prediction that someone posted on here that had something to do w/ miners getting trapped in Africa. I tried doing a search but couldn't find it.

This happens surprisingly often... not on this scale. But miners get trapped in Africa (particularly South Africa) more often than we'd like to admit.

Originally posted by pjslug
Knowing the way these blood diamond mines work in South Africa, I'm surprised they aren't going to blast the mine with the people still in it. It would be cheaper for them than having to pay out on the injuries. Sad and horrible, but probably true.

I mean no disrespect... but where are you getting your information?

South African Blood Diamond mines?! Where you'd expect they would blast the mine with people trapped inside?!

At least read a few posts before posting yourself. No injuries as yet reported... in a GOLDmine.

tut tut tut