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South Africa’s Mines Rescue team has offered its services to the government of Chile to help free 33 mine workers who have already been trapped in the San Jose gold and copper mine in Copiapo for over two weeks following a rock fall.

A shaft with a diameter of 15cm was drilled on Sunday to near where the group of miners are trapped at a depth of 688 metres, under thick layers of rock. Another shaft was drilled through to them on Monday.

It could, however, take another four months to dig a proper tunnel to the miners through which they can be brought to safety.

Christo de Klerk, managing director of Mines Rescue, said on Tuesday they’re still waiting to hear from the Chilean government.

Offered help

“We have offered our help, but we’ll only be able to help once a proper, reinforced shaft of at least 635mm in diameter has been drilled to where the miners are,” said De Klerk.

According to him, Mines Rescue has an emergency winch which can lower a capsule to a depth of 1 300m to bring the trapped miners to the surface.

While workers were busy drilling a third shaft to the miners on Tuesday, emergency workers lowered capsules with rehydration tablets, tubes of glucose and oxygen.

Laurence Golborne, Chile’s minister of mining, said the first shaft that was drilled will be used to lower supplies to the miners, while the second shaft will be used for communication and the third for ventilation.

The miners told on Monday – by means of a communication system in the second shaft – how they had survived thus far on two spoonfuls of tuna, a biscuit and a sip of milk every 48 hours.

Four months underground

Meanwhile doctors and psychologists are considering how to keep the trapped men calm and psychologically strong during the expected four months that they will be trapped underground.

According to officials, they are planning to keep the trapped miners “informed and busy” during the long wait.

Small microphones have already been lowered to the mine workers so they can speak to their families. An enormous drill with diamond-reinforced drill bits, which can drill a shaft with a diameter of 660mm at 20m per day, is currently en route to the mine from central Chile. It will take three days to set up.

[Story by Fanie Van Rooyen, Beeld]

Chilean miners who survived 18 days after a cave-in received hydration gel and medication through a narrow drill hole on Monday, but officials said it could be months before the men are freed.

In what relatives called a miracle, the miners on Sunday tied a note to a perforation drill that had bored a shaft the circumference of a grapefruit to where they are located, 2,300 feet (700 meters) vertically underground.

The accident in the small gold and copper mine has turned a spotlight on mine safety in Chile, the world’s No. 1 copper producer, although accidents are rare at major mines.

The incident is not seen having a significant impact on Chile’s output.

Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said rescue workers began sending plastic tubes called “doves” containing glucose solutions, hydration gels and medicine down to the miners to keep them alive while they dig a new shaft to extract them. That could take up to four months.

The miners have not been told how long it will take, but they may only emerge from the mine at Christmas.

“We are well. We’re waiting to be rescued,” Luis Urzua, shift leader at the mine, told Golborne by radio link as the trapped miners applauded, cheered and sang Chile’s national anthem.

Golborne said the miners were in remarkably good condition and spirits despite their ordeal. It is one of the longest periods that trapped miners have survived underground.

“The wait is very different now,” said Elias Barros, 57, whose brother is among those trapped. “It is a wait free of anguish. This isn’t over, but we are much more hopeful it will end happily.”

Relatives wrote letters to send down the shaft to the miners to help boost morale during the long wait ahead. Golborne said relatives had joked he should send cold beer down the drill hole.

Andre Sougarret, manager of state copper giant Codelco’s El Teniente mine, who is heading up the drilling effort, said engineers would drill two other shafts. One would be to ensure ventilation and communication in the coming months and another, wider one to bring the miners to surface using a pulley.

Engineers are transporting a more powerful drill from another mine and must decide where to bore the larger hole without risking further cave-ins at the unstable mine. Sougarret said it would take three to four months to drill the extraction hole.

The miners are 4.5 miles (7 km) inside the winding mine. They sheltered in a sparse 540-square-foot (50 square metre) refuge, an area the size of a small apartment, which contains two long wooden benches. They have now moved out into a tunnel because of ventilation problems, Sougarret said.

WATER, VENTILATION SAVED MINERS

Tanks of water and ventilation helped the miners to survive, but they had limited food supplies. Health officials estimate they may have lost about 17.5 to 20 pounds (8 to 9 kg) each. The men rationed out the provisions they had, eating two mouthfuls of tuna and half a glass of milk every 48 hours, a local senator said.

Rescuers lowered a television camera down the bore-hole on Sunday and some of the miners looked into the lens. Some had removed their shirts because of the heat in the mine and officials said they looked better than expected.

The miners used the batteries of a truck in the mine to power lights and charge their helmet lamps.

“The miners are alive, but the job is not done yet,” President Sebastian Pinera said in the capital, Santiago, pledging to tighten labour safety regulations.

Pinera has fired officials of Chile’s mining regulator and vowed a major overhaul of the agency in light of the accident.

Analysts say the feel-good factor of finding the miners alive, coupled with the government’s hands-on approach, could help Pinera as he tries to push through changes to mining royalties that the centre-left opposition had shot down.

As night fell on Sunday, jubilant relatives of the trapped miners gathered with rescue workers around bonfires for a barbecue, celebrating with traditional live music and dance as a cold fog enveloped the mine head.

On Sunday night, thousands of Chileans honked their horns and burst into applause at restaurants when they heard the news.

“This was a 17-day nightmare,” said 42-year-old miner Sandro Rojas, whose brother, two cousins and nephew are among those trapped. “When I see my brother, I’m going to tell him I love him and smother him with kisses. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be able to speak I’m so excited.”

The government says the San Jose mine, owned by private company Compania Minera San Esteban Primera, has suffered a series of mishaps. Sixteen workers were killed in recent years.

The miners’ plight has drawn parallels with the story of 16 people who survived more than 72 days in the Andes mountains after a 1972 plane crash. Their story was later made into the Hollywood movie Alive.

[Reuters]

Rescue workers pulled out the last seven trapped workers on Saturday after an underground fire killed 16 people in China’s latest mining disaster.

The blaze that broke out Friday afternoon initially trapped 50 miners at the Lingnan Gold Mine in Zhaoyuan city in eastern Shandong province, but all were rescued as of 13:00 on Saturday, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

China Central Television footage on Saturday showed one rescued miner, shirtless, covering his eyes with a towel as he and others walked out of an elevator at the mine shaft entrance.

An official who identified himself only by his surname Li said the fire was caused by an underground cable, and the owner of the mine was in police custody. Xinhua said 329 people were working in the mine when the fire started.

China has the world’s deadliest mining industry with more than 2 600 people killed in mine accidents last year. Those figures represent a drop from previous years as the government has moved to close down smaller, illegal mines.

This week 25 miners were killed in two separate accidents when lethal gas seeped into the mines where they were working. Nine workers were killed at a mine on Monday in central Henan province, while 16 workers died on Tuesday at a mine in southwestern Guizhou province.

Mining deaths jumped again in the first half of this year. Coal mine deaths through June were 1 261, up from 1 175 in the same period last year.

Earlier this month, a spokesperson for the work safety administration told the China Daily newspaper the jump was caused in part by China’s recovery from the economic crisis.

Last month, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered mine managers and bosses to accompany workers down into mine shafts in a bid to improve safety.

However, the approach has failed to produce any impact. More than 100 miners have died in the past month. None of those killed were mine bosses or managers – a fact noted with unusual criticism by the typically docile state media.

- AP

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Thursday more than 5000 mineworkers have downed tools at the Northam Platinum Mine in Rustenburg to mourn the deaths of the two mineworkers killed there last week.

The union said its members will gather at the mine for a memorial service and then disperse.

The two miners were killed in a ground fall accident last Tuesday.

NUM’s Lesiba Seshoka said by holding a day of mourning it is sending a strong message to mine bosses.

“Now that we have seen that you always put production over the lives of ordinary people [it tells us production is] more important. Therefore if you don’t treat this seriously we will take the day off so that you will also feel the pain in terms of production,” he said.

(Story by Tara Meaney,Edited by Deshnee Subramany appeared on Eyewitness News)

The water treatment plant at the Grootvlei mine near Springs will flood with acid mine water in five days, closing down operations, if action is not taken, the water affairs department said on Tuesday.

“The plant is only pumping 40 megalitres of acid mine water a day, but it needs to pump 108 megalitres a day to stop it from flooding,” the department’s acting director of institutional establishment, Marius Keet said during a visit to the mine, owned by Aurora Empowerment Systems.

“Fortunately Aurora have said they have acquired the equipment to pump more and will be installing it in the next few days.”

The department’s portfolio committee, representatives from the departments of water affairs and mineral resources, and members of the DA were also part of the visiting delegation.

Acid mine drainage was affecting the Western, Central and Eastern Basins of the Witwatersrand gold fields area, which had negatively affected the Vaal and the Crocodile River systems.

Acid water is formed underground when old shafts and tunnels fill up. The water oxidises with the sulphide mineral iron pyrite, better known as fool’s gold. The water then fills the mine and starts decanting into the environment, in a process known as acid mine drainage.

Keet said if the toxic water, a legacy of 120 years of gold mining in the region, was left to rise from underground, it would flood the basins and have catastrophic consequences for the environment, human and animal life and future mining.

The polluted water was currently 600 metres below Johannesburg and, if left unchecked, would spill onto the streets in about 18 months, damaging buildings in the CBD.

Aurora’s general manager Louis Lamsley said they were “struggling to keep their heads above water”.

“We are an extremely stressed operation financially,” he said referring to claims the company had paid up to R100m in the last nine months to maintain the mine water treatment plant, which still seemed to be on the brink of disaster.

Grootvlei was the only mine in the Eastern Basin pumping out acid water. It only pumped intermittently and had been accused of only partially treating the water and discharging it into the Blesbok Spruit.

The department opened a criminal case against Aurora after it allegedly failed to comply with a directive to treat the pumped water before discharging it. The matter was currently under investigation by the police and the Blue Scorpions.

Acid mine water started flooding the pump station in June after workers, angered by months of not being paid, downed tools.

“We are supposed to be receiving a R5m subsidy from the state, but we have not received this since October last year,” said Zondwa Mandela, Aurora’s managing director and former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson. “It costs R6.5m [per month] to run the plant,” he said.

Aurora called on government to assist them financially.

Chair of the department of water affairs’ portfolio committee, Maggie Sotyu, said: “We are visiting the areas so we can assess what needs to be done to fix the problem, and we will compile a report to hand to Parliament in a month’s time, but the situation is serious so we will need to intervene before that.”

[Info from Fin24.com]

Northam Platinum

Two mineworkers died at Northam Platinum’s Zondereinde mine near Thabazimbi, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said today. “The workers died due to a fall of ground,” the NUM said in a statement.

The accident took place yesterday morning and the NUM condemned what it called the company’s ‘going the extra mile’ to hide the accident from the union. “The death came to the attention of the branch only this morning, when the department of mineral resources informed the branch that a section 54 notice of the Mine Health and Safety Act had been issued, suspending operations.”

However, Northam Platinum said a statement had been released yesterday evening on the accident. Management told Sapa that it was surprised by the NUM’s comments as the union had been involved in the inspection that had taken place soon after the accident.

The NUM called for stiffer penalties and measures against companies and executives “that attempt to hide mine deaths in order to score safety bonuses”. According to the union, the latest deaths brought the death toll in the mining industry to 70 since January 2010. “It is shocking that the 70 that died is what the Chamber of Mines calls safety progress,” said Peter Bailey, the NUM’s chairman for health and safety.

The accident was the result of a localised fall of ground in a cross-cut some 1350m underground, Northam Platinum said. The area had been supported with grouted roofbolts. Northam said drilling and blasting activities had been suspended while management implemented an audit of support compliance and ground conditions throughout the underground workings.-Sapa

Platinum industry bosses, who met with Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu, have agreed on initiatives to cut deaths in the sector.

Last week five platinum miners died in Rustenburg, raising concerns over safety in the mines.

The minister said that although recent accidents had not caused many deaths, any death is worrying.

She said the platinum chief executives agreed to meet to discuss ongoing safety initiatives. These include sharing safety procedures, training and technology.

Mines Chief Inspector Thabo Gazi said deaths in the sector are lower than last year.

More than four deaths in a single incident is considered a disaster and requires a special response.

Anglo Platinum’s Neville Nicolau said they will pay special attention to the industry accepted tripartite structure on safety, which is a forum represented by the management, the unions and the mines’ inspectorate.

(Story by Barry Bateman,Edited by Deshnee Subramany appeared on Eyewitness News)

An inquiry into a mine accident in Rustenburg which left five people dead and one critically injured is underway, Aquarius Platinum said on Thursday.

“Representatives of the department of mineral resources (DMR) will join management for an in loco investigation at the site of the accident this (Thursday) morning,” said company spokesperson Janet Whitaker.

Late on Tuesday night, seven mine workers contracted to Murray & Roberts Cementation were trapped at Marikana Aquarius Platinum mine when there was a fall of ground.

Five died, one was left critically injured and one was unharmed.

Whitaker said preliminary assessments of the fall of ground in 4 Shaft indicated that an around 500 ton block of rock fell from a hanging wall.

She said that the rock was supported “to industry standards”.

Operations at 4 Shaft remained suspended and would continue to be until an investigation into the cause of the accident, as well as an audit into support compliance and rock conditions, was completed.

The company wanted to retrain and assess all employees on dealing with rock hazards.

It also wanted to review the company code of practice and mine design.

“These processes are underway, and management expects to be able to present the results to the department of mineral resources within two weeks.”

By Wednesday evening, the bodies of all five of the employees who died in the accident were retrieved.

“The process of notifying their next-of-kin is underway.”

On Thursday, the National Union of Mineworkers said that a day of mourning, during which workers would down tools, would be announced soon.

- SAPA

Five people have been killed in a mine accident near Rustenburg, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Wednesday.

NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said the accident happened late on Tuesday night at Marikana platinum mine.

“There was a fall of ground.

“Seven mine workers were trapped and five of them died.”

Seshoka said that one person was critically injured and one left unscathed.

He said the cause of the fall of ground was not yet known.

“We are shocked that at the time when we thought we are doing all we can to improve safety, all of (a) sudden we are encountering similar problems again.”

Comment from mine management was not immediately available.

- SAPA

Dozens of artisanal miners are feared trapped in a collapsed gold mine in central Ghana and some are believed already dead, authorities said on Monday as they battled to pull out victims.

“People have died and we believe there are many bodies down there,” said municipality chief Peter Owusu-Ashia, adding that as many as 100 miners were estimated to have entered the mine earlier in the day in the central town of Dunkwa-on-Offin.

Owusu-Ashia said rescue efforts were being hampered by flooding of the mine from an earlier downpour but that extra excavators and a water pump were being brought in.

The pit was an abandoned mine and the miners were working in informal gangs of around five men each. Artisanal mining is common across west and central Africa, a region of low formal employment but with abundant natural resources.

- Reuters