Johannesburg - A dark shadow was cast over Lily gold mine at Barberton, Mpumalanga, on the weekend after two more ground collapses forced rescuers to suspend a search to rescue three people trapped underground.
Lily gold mine manager Mike Begg said at the weekend that rescue teams were evacuated after a second collapse on Saturday. Begg said teams of 40 people had been searching underground since February 5, when the mine collapsed. There was a third ground collapse yesterday.
Also read: Lily rescue teams 'work tirelessly'
The company said rescue teams had significantly increased the extraction rate of rocks and debris on Friday before the new ground collapse. International specialists brought to Lily Mine had confirmed that the pit area was unstable as ongoing ground movement was detected, it said.
Chamber of Mines president Mike Teke yesterday extended his heartfelt sympathies to the families, friends, and colleagues of three mineworkers still trapped underground at Lily.
“We know that no words will be sufficient to bring comfort to them, and will keep them in our prayers. “We want to thank those who have worked tirelessly to reach their colleagues since the collapse occurred, including the volunteer members of Mine Rescue Services, who have come from all parts of South Africa,” Teke said.
Yesterday marked nine days since Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Mabuza, and Solomon Nyarenda were trapped underground when the lamp room container they were working in fell into the sinkhole created by a collapsed crown pillar before being covered by huge rocks.
On Saturday, the presidency said three cabinet ministers had been assigned to provide support to the families of the three mineworkers still trapped underground. They are Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Minister in the Presidency responsible for Women, Susan Shabangu, and Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini.
The ministers would work with the provincial government to provide support to the affected families, the presidency said.
Also on Saturday, Zwane announced that Lily mine owners Vantage Goldfields had offered R200 000 for each of the three mineworkers still trapped underground
Zwane told reporters outside the mine shaft that the 76 miners rescued from the mine after last Friday’s collapse would also be compensated.
“I’m saying I have engaged with the mine. The effort that I have announced (the money) is specifically from the mine,” Zwane said. “After our engagement with the mine, we agreed that ‘let’s look after our workers’. After all, these people work for all of us, we agreed. We came to an understanding that those who survived will each get R50 000 and for the three still trapped underneath the soil, by the time we get their container above the ground, each of them gets R200 000.”
Meanwhile, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called for compensation to be given to all mineworkers injured underground and the families of those who die underground.
In a statement yesterday the NUM health and safety secretary Erick Gcilitshana said: “It is a good initiative by the company and DMR (mineral resources department), but the money is not enough to compensate the families and miners for the pain and suffering they are currently going through.”
“We feel, as the NUM, that financial compensation must not only be implemented at Vantage Goldfields’ Lily mine, because injuries and fatalities are happening in the mining industry as a whole. This must not be a once-off initiative,” he said.
The NUM called on all mining companies and the department to compensate all mineworkers, or their families, injured or dying underground. The NUM was deeply concerned about the “high number of mineworkers who are trapped, injured and dying underground”, Gcilitshana said
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