By Poloko Tau and Lebogang Seale
Nine miners have crashed to their death at Gold Fields' South Deep mine near Westonaria, west of Joburg, as the country commemorated Workers' Day.
The miners - eight males and a female - perished at the Twin Shafts mine complex on Thursday after a chain of their service conveyer broke at about 10:10am, causing the lift to plummet about 60 metres.
Eight of the deceased workers were Murray & Roberts employees subcontracted to the mine.
Thursday's accident brought to 14 the number of deaths at Gold Fields' mining sites this week.
Gold Fields said the accident happened while workers were being taken from level 105 to level 110.
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Nick Holland, who officially commenced his duties as Gold Fields' new chief executive on Thursday, described this week as tragic for his company.
"It's a disastrous day for Gold Fields. It's a black day, very distressing for us," he said.
The accident has led to the suspension of operations at Gold Fields' three mining sites, including the Driefontein mine, where four workers died in a seismic-related rockfall on Tuesday.
Also on the same day, a fifth miner was killed at Twin Shafts when a rock fell while he was drilling.
Gold Fields said the mines would remain closed until it was safe to resume work.
The department of minerals and energy said it would launch its own investigations into all fatal accidents at the mines.
Quizzed on the details of the accident, Holland said he did not want to pre-empt the out-come of the investigation, saying only that there had been an "apparent failure" with the conveyer chain.
Gold Fields also revealed that the same chain that broke and led to the accident had been inspected the previous day.
This week's spate of accidents at Gold Fields mines has angered labour unions, who condemned the mine's safety standards.
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