Fire kills 23 illegal miners in South Africa

By Xinhua

Johannesburg : An underground fire has claimed the lives of 23 miners illegally working an unused shaft at a South African gold mine, police officials said.`


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Their bodies were discovered Sunday and brought to the surface by colleagues who were arrested when the fire, which started over two weeks ago, forced them to leave the mine last Tuesday.

A total of 120 illegal miners were arrested when they made their way out of the St. Helena Mine in Welkom, Free State province, Tuesday, the SAPA news agency quoted police spokesman Motantsi Makhele as saying.

The mine belongs to Harmony Gold Mining Company, the world’s fifth largest gold producer, the company said Sunday, but stressed that the shaft which is still burning was disused and operated by illegal miners.

“A fire broke out on Sep 18 at the disused section of the St. Helena No. 2 Shaft, some eight kilometre from the currently operating No. 8 Shaft (of Harmony),” the company’s spokeswoman Amelia Soares told Xinhua.

She said the company sent a task team to the mine and the working shifts were withdrawn on that day. But the team was unable to access the disused areas of the mine where the fire had been burning.

Soares said a representative of the illegal miners Sunday informed mine management, mine security and the police that the bodies of the illegal miners that had been caught in the fire had been brought closer to the shaft.

“This is considered a criminal matter and is under the investigation of the South African police,” she said. “Illegal mining is damaging the industry.”

The arrested illegal miners had since appeared in court and faced charges of trespassing.

A group of them returned to the mine Sunday to look for their colleagues who were still missing.

They brought eight bodies to the surface at 11:30 a.m. Another 15 bodies were later recovered. Police fear that the killed miners were possibly from neighbouring countries including Lesotho and Mozambique, although their identities have yet been verified.

“Some of these bodies can still be identified, while others were already beyond recognition due to the period they spent underground,” Makhele said.

“Post-mortems will be conducted on them, as well as some forensic tests on those which can’t be identified,” he added.

Harmony Gold attracted worldwide media coverage early this week as its 3,200 employees were successfully rescued Thursday after they were trapped about two kilometres underground for more than 30 hours at its Elandsrand mine because a lift that was used to hoist miners to the surface was damaged.

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