[miningmx.com] – UP TO 20 illegal miners are thought to have been
killed on March 5 at the Grootvlei gold-mining property on the East Rand, the mine
that Aurora Empowerment Systems once said it would take over.
It’s thought the accident occurred after illegal miners entered the property and
blasted rock. “Some of the hanging wall fell on them, and we think it could be 20
miners or even more,’ said a source who did not want to be named in the absence of
an official announcement.
When Miningmx approached the Chamber of Mines of South Africa and the
South African Police Services, they were still seeking further details.
Johan Engelbrecht, one of the joint provisional liquidators for the properties that
Aurora Empowerment Systems was operating, confirmed an accident had occurred
involving illegal miners but couldn’t provide more details.
However, according to an initial report on the accident, which is in Miningmx’s
possession, the illegal miners were working in the old underground workings in the
Van Rijn opencast region of the Grootvlei mine. The Mineral Resources Department
(DMR) was informed of the accident and began an investigation on March 6, with the
possibility of involving the Mine Rescue Services.
On reaching the accident site, investigators discovered that “… a reasonably large
group of illegal miners were present in the area owing to evidence of large quantities
of food and cool drinks in the vicinity’.
“The area had been extensively mined out with absolutely no support work in place,
with numerous fractures in the hanging wall being evident with a good possibility of
further falls of ground occurring at any given time,’ the report said.
The report said an “extremely large fall of ground had occurred, measuring about 40
metres by 30 metres by 1.4 metres. On closer inspection, two members of the group
had been fatally injured and a further injured man was discovered. Stope fuses were
found suggesting the cause of the fall of ground was due to blasting operations.
“Due to the extent of the fall of ground and large quantities of food observed it is
very possible that, as the witness stated, that the possibility that 20 persons lost
their lives could be true,’ the report said.
BAD HISTORY
Grootvlei has a recent history of illegal mining with a number of deaths reported in
2010 and 2011 – both related to unsafe mining conditions and battles between
miners and security forces.
In August, 2010 about 20 illegal miners and a security guard were killed, culminating
in the arrest in December that year of 358 illegal miners following a shootout.
Last year, three illegal miners died at Grootvlei, for which the DMR should bear part
responsibility, said union Solidarity at the time.
A mining industry source said it was farcical that the Chief Inspectorate had been
handing out Section 54 stoppages “like candy’ for relatively minor incidents when it
could not control illegal mining at places like Grootvlei.
