South Africa has lost 143 miners to mining accidents in 2009, Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu said on Tuesday.
Falls of ground accidents were still the largest accident category and predominant cause of fatalities in the country's mines, the minister told the 120th annual general meeting of the Chamber of Mines.
Of the fatalities reported so far this year, 55 were as a result of the falls of ground accidents and 70 percent of these were due to gravity-induced incidents.
"What is frustrating is the fact that all these accidents are 'repeat' in nature and by now we should have learned from previous cases," the minister said.
Continues Below ↓
Both the Council for Geoscience and the Mine Health and Safety Council were working on a project to improve seismic network coverage and seismic data integration and transparency, she said.
However, more work needed to done to reduce gravity-induced accidents because South Africa had the means and resources, Shabangu said.
Occupational health impacts were difficult to quantify since many health effects were not immediate, the minister said.
"Occupational lung diseases are a major cause of premature retirement and death at South African mines.
"Dust-related lung diseases such as silicosis overshadow mine accidents in numbers of workers affected."
The minister said that noise was one of the significant health hazards for workers in the South African mining industry.
"More emphasis and investment on matters of health is urgently needed to change the status quo at our mines," Shabangu said.
She added that tuberculosis, HIV and Aids could not be allowed to kill mine workers especially in times where measures were in place to fight the diseases.
"We have to redouble our efforts to improve the health of mineworkers," she said. - Sapa
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
