3000 South African Miners trapped

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More than 3,000 South African miners trapped
Updated Wed. Oct. 3 2007 5:52 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

More than 3,000 workers are trapped underground in a South African mine belonging to the world's fifth biggest gold producer, officials said Wednesday.

It's unclear whether any miners were on the lift when the cable broke, but it blocked the entrance to a shaft 2.2 kilometres beneath the surface.

Union officials say a burst water pipe likely caused a shaft to collapse.

The shaft is believed to be 2.2 kilometres beneath the surface.

A Harmony Gold spokeswoman told Reuters the workers at the Elandsrand mine became trapped after an electrical cable of a lift carrying workers snapped at about 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

According to the British Broadcasting Corp., rescue teams are now trying to reach the stranded workers using an adjacent shaft.

A spokesperson for Harmony Gold said the company had lost communication with the miners.

Mine engineers are trying to rescue the workers by lowering an adjacent lift to them.

The rescue operation could last well into the following morning as it may only be possible to lift out a few hundred workers at a time.

A spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers told The Associated Press that the mine managers are meeting with union members.

The Elandsrand mine contains the largest gold deposit in the world.

More to come...


Thoughts and prayers go out in hopes of a safe return to all.

 

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Rescuers reach 3,000 trapped S. African miners
Updated Wed. Oct. 3 2007 9:05 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Rescue teams brought the first 74 of an estimated 3,000 trapped South African miners to safety Wednesday night, in an evacuation expected to take several hours.

The workers are trapped more than two kilometres beneath the ground in Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine, located near Johannesburg.

None of the 74 rescued workers were injured.

"They are all doing well," Peter Bailey, the health and safety chairman for the National Mineworkers Union, told The Associated Press.

It's believed the miners became trapped when a water pipe burst and caused the collapse of a shaft, said to be about 2.2 kilometres beneath the surface.

Officials say the pipe probably caused soil in the underground shaft to collapse.

A company executive said officials hope to rescue all of the miners by late Thursday.

The workers have been receiving food and water, Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs said on MSNBC.

Deon Boqwana, the regional chairman for the miners union, said the trapped workers have ventilation.

"They are still in good condition but are angry, hungry, frustrated and want to get out of there," he said.

Rescue teams are evacuating the miners using a small cage in an adjacent shaft. But Boqwana said they are using a smaller cage than can only bring about 75 miners to the surface at a time.

He estimated the entire evacuation would take about 10 hours.

The rescue operation could last well into the following morning as it may only be possible to lift out a few hundred workers at a time.

A spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers told AP that the mine managers have met with union members.

Harmoney Gold is the world's fifth biggest gold producer, while the Elandsrand mine contains the largest deposit of the precious metal in the world.

According to the South African government's Mine Health and Safety Council, 199 miners died last year, mostly from falling rocks.