Sunday Times reports that dangerously high levels of methane in a ventilation shaft of an unused mine have prevented rescue workers from retrieving 28 of the 31 illegal miners who died in a gas explosion last month.
The deaths in Virginia, Free State, were announced by the Department of Mineral Resources & Energy (DMRE) on Thursday – more than a month after the incident occurred. Sihle Maake, the spokesperson for Harmony Gold, which owns the mine, said they were working with experts under the guidance of the DMRE in "seeking a solution”. “There are holes for the gas to escape through. Once enough gas has escaped and the levels are safer we can begin to attempt retrieving the bodies. This is a gradual process, and the situation will not change overnight. We are also investigating other options and possibilities,” she advised. The shaft in which the miners died had been unused since the 1990s. Maake said they had alerted the DMRE about the incident more than a month ago. DMRE spokesperson Ernest Mulibana confirmed that the dead were Lesotho nationals, but said no-one had yet been identified. “The moment it is safe enough to enter the shaft, we will commence the retrieval operation,” he indicated. Mulibana refuted Maake's claims that the department had been told about the incident last month, saying it “only found out about the incident last week”. On Friday, police discovered the bodies of eight suspected illegal miners at a dumping site in Germiston on the East Rand. A police spokesperson said it was unclear whether the decomposed bodies were linked to the 31 miners who had died in the Free State.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Hendrik Hancke at Sunday Times (subscriber access only)
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