[miningmx.com] – HARMONY Gold said all of the 486 miners who were underground at Kusasalethu as a fire raged following maintenance in the mine had been brought safely to surface.
“We are extremely grateful that all of our colleagues have been brought to surface, without injury,” said Graham Briggs, CEO of Harmony, who added that an investigation would be jointly conducted with the Department of Mineral Resources.
“This is to the credit of our systems, employees, the unions, and mine management who have worked tirelessly over the past 12 hours,” said Briggs of the rescue efforts. “I also want to extend our thanks to mine rescue services for their efforts,’ he said.
Rescue teams were deployed underground to contain the fire which started during maintenance work on a bulk air cooler on 75 level, the company said.
All operations at the mine, other than those related to the rescue, have been suspended, the company said in an earlier statement last night.
In October, Harmony said it had shut its Kusasalethu mine for two weeks and sent employees on leave in a bid to combat the threat to safety posed by illegal mining on its premises.
The action, aimed primarily at protecting employees at the mine which has suffered three underground fires during October last year, also has the affect of denting Harmony’s chances of clawing itself back to profitability.
An underground fire broke out at Kusasalethu on October 30, and although all employees were evacuated safely, Briggs, said at the time that the risk of another fire harming employees was too great a risk to bear.
“The risk of yet another underground fire is a risk that we are not prepared to take and therefore we are reverting to this temporary mine closure’, said Briggs. During the closure of the mine, Harmony would attempt to remove the illegal miners.
The interruption to mining delivers another blow to Harmony which said it would downsize Kusasalethu in order to bring it to profitability.
The new plan for Kusasalethu was to mine lower volumes at higher grades. The mine, which has absorbed R3.9bn in capital spend since 2011, and posted negative cash flow of R504m over the last 16 months, employed about 6,300 people including contractors.
