A FALL of ground incident claimed the life of a miner at Anglo American Platinum’s (Amplats’) Dishaba mine in Amandelbult on October 18, the company said today in an announcement.
The fatality was on the day the country’s mining sector met for a Safety Summit in which mines minister, Gwede Mantashe, disclosed that 69 workers had died so far this year. Of this number, more than half were on South Africa’s gold mines.
The Amplats fatality means total fatalities this year matches last year’s at roughly the same time. Deaths in 2017 spiked for the first time in almost a decade.
“We remain committed to our objective of eliminating fatalities with a zero-harm mindset and have begun an independent and comprehensive process to understand the circumstances of this incident and to ensure we learn from it to prevent recurrence,” said Chris Griffith, CEO of Amplats in a statement.
“We are all deeply saddened by this tragic incident, and send our sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of our employee who has lost their life,” he said.
