Alarm at mine deaths
Mine safety in SA has improved dramatically since the early 1990s, but last year the grim toll from accidents rose again
The mantra after a fatal mining accident has always been a rather hand-wringing "it shouldn’t have happened". It is estimated that 88 miners died in accidents on SA’s mines last year. It was an unhappy regression for the industry: fatalities had fallen from 615 in 1993, to 200 in 2007, to 73 in 2016. This year hasn’t started well either. The Chamber of Mines has confirmed that 14 mineworkers have died since the beginning of 2018. It could have been even worse: in January 955 workers were trapped in Sibanye’s Beatrix mine in Welkom for two nights. In the end, they were all rescued alive. The chamber spends more money on safety programmes than on any other initiative: R250m last year on research into seismic activity associated with deep-level mining, and another R40m on other safety-related research. While the chamber could not pinpoint the exact reasons behind the spike in fatalities, trade unions have blamed increased pressure on workers as one of the causes. The National Union of ...
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