3,200 Miners Trapped In South African Gold Mine

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Harmony Gold Mining Co., Africa’s third-largest gold producer, said 3,200 workers are stuck more than a mile underground at its Elandsrand mine in South Africa after a falling pipe damaged the shaft.

A pipe broke from a column near the surface “due to fatigue” and plunged down the 1.4-mile shaft, spokeswoman Amelia Soares said. An adjacent shaft normally used to haul waste is being refitted so that rescuers can start hoisting 300 miners an hour to the surface by midnight local time, she said.

The pipe collapse “caused a lot of damage to the steelwork and electrical feeder cords,” Ms. Soares said yesterday in a telephone interview from Johannesburg. “There have been no injuries.”

Mines in South Africa are the world’s deepest and among the most dangerous, with 113 workers killed last year by rock bursts, mudslides, tremors, and exploding gases. About 440,000 people work in mines in the country, which has a 26% unemployment rate.

Declining production from South Africa’s mines has forced companies including Harmony and Gold Fields Ltd. to dig deeper shafts to tap the Witwatersrand Basin, the world’s largest gold deposit, which lies under Johannesburg. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of the precious metal.

The miners reported for work almost 19 hours ago, at about 4 a.m. local time, regional chairman for the National Union of Mineworkers, the country’s largest labor union, Deon Boqwana, said.

“An escape route is the most important thing and they have failed miserably,” Mr. Boqwana said in a telephone interview from the mine. “They need to ensure that the shaft is maintained. This is why we have this disaster. Our main worry is for more than 3,000 people who are underground.”

Harmony’s former chief executive officer, Bernard Swanepoel, quit on August 7 after running the company for more than a decade and orchestrating the acquisition of aging mines and cutting costs to boost profit margins.


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