Rescue under way after hundreds of workers trapped in South Africa gold mine
Nearly a third of the 260 miners stuck underground following an accident at a Sibanye-Stillwater gold mine in South Africa were brought to the surface on Friday, the company said, as a senior union official confirmed there had been no injuries.
Advertisement
The miners were stuck underground after the hoist system used to access a shaft at the Kloof gold mine – one of Sibanye's deepest, situated about 60km (37 miles) west of Johannesburg – was damaged in an accident on Thursday.
Sibanye said 79 of the employees had been brought to the surface by 1.30pm in the first phase of an operation to extract the miners.
'The remaining 181 employees … have been provided with food and will be hoisted to surface as soon as safety to hoist is confirmed,' Sibanye said in a statement.
A company spokesperson said late Friday afternoon that the process was expected to be completed 'soon'.
Advertisement
'Fortunately there were no fatalities or injuries,' National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Health and Safety Chairperson Duncan Luvuno told journalists at the site. 'But for … 24 hours people were not eating or drinking anything. This is not adequate. Some have chronic diseases.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
31-05-2025
- South China Morning Post
Injured Mirror dancer's dad shocked by acquittal of 3 backstage staff in Hong Kong
The father of Mo Li Kai-yin, a dancer who was severely injured by a falling giant screen at a Mirror concert in Hong Kong, has expressed shock over the acquittal of three backstage staff members involved in the show by the District Court. In a letter posted online on Saturday, Reverend Derek Li Shing-lam said the acquittals were hard to accept given the suffering his son had endured. The court on Friday found the workers lacked a motive to deliberately understate the weight of stage equipment, including the screen that collapsed and injured Mo and another dancer during the Hong Kong Coliseum show on July 28, 2022. Inferior standards of work, shoddy stage design and an engineer's negligence were instead to blame for the screen's collapse, it found. Li wrote: 'I ask: If a driver with no experience crashes a car and causes severe injury or even death, can they also be acquitted on the grounds of being a 'novice'?' He went on to question 'where the scales of justice were tipping' and underscored his son's difficult journey towards recovery. 'How he has gritted his teeth to survive every time he was on the verge of life and death, and now, those who use 'lack of experience' as a shield, those supervisors who claim they 'did not read carefully' and hastily signed off – can a mere evasion wipe away tears of blood?
South China Morning Post
30-05-2025
- South China Morning Post
Alaska hiker cheats death pinned under 300kg boulder in icy creek thanks to wife and luck
An Alaska man who was pinned facedown in an icy creek by a 300kg boulder for three hours survived the ordeal with only minor injuries, thanks in part to his wife's quick thinking and lots of luck. Advertisement Kell Morris' wife held his head above water to prevent him from drowning while waiting for rescuers to arrive after Morris was pinned by the boulder, which crashed onto him during a hike near a remote glacier south of Anchorage. His second stroke of luck came when a sled dog tourism company that operates on the glacier overheard the 911 dispatch and offered up its helicopter to ferry rescuers to the scene, which was inaccessible to all-terrain vehicles. Once rescuers arrived, it took seven men and inflatable airbags to lift the boulder off as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Kell Morris, upper right in a brown hat, trapped under a boulder. Photo: Jason Harrington/Seward Fire Department via AP Morris, 61, said he realises he was probably the luckiest man alive. 'And luckier that I have such a great wife,' he said Thursday.
South China Morning Post
23-05-2025
- South China Morning Post
Rescue under way after hundreds of workers trapped in South Africa gold mine
Nearly a third of the 260 miners stuck underground following an accident at a Sibanye-Stillwater gold mine in South Africa were brought to the surface on Friday, the company said, as a senior union official confirmed there had been no injuries. Advertisement The miners were stuck underground after the hoist system used to access a shaft at the Kloof gold mine – one of Sibanye's deepest, situated about 60km (37 miles) west of Johannesburg – was damaged in an accident on Thursday. Sibanye said 79 of the employees had been brought to the surface by 1.30pm in the first phase of an operation to extract the miners. 'The remaining 181 employees … have been provided with food and will be hoisted to surface as soon as safety to hoist is confirmed,' Sibanye said in a statement. A company spokesperson said late Friday afternoon that the process was expected to be completed 'soon'. Advertisement 'Fortunately there were no fatalities or injuries,' National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Health and Safety Chairperson Duncan Luvuno told journalists at the site. 'But for … 24 hours people were not eating or drinking anything. This is not adequate. Some have chronic diseases.'
