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pencilvanian
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
2209 Posts |
 Posted - 10/03/2007 : 19:57:35
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JOHANNESBURG (Thomson Financial) - Fears were growing for the safety of more than 3,000 workers on Thursday after they were trapped at a gold mine in South Africa when the power was cut to their underground lift.
While the owners of the mine southwest of Johannesburg were confident that the 3,200 workers were safe and would soon begin to be rescued after more than 12 hours underground, unions warned that they were in danger of suffocating as a result of the high temperatures.
A spokeswoman for Harmony Gold, the owners of the Elandsrand mine, near Carletonville, said the lift malfunctioned when a cable snapped during the morning shift.
"Nobody was injured, but there was extensive damage to the steel work and electrical feeder cords," Harmony Gold spokeswoman Amelia Soares told the Sapa news agency.
While it was expected the lift would be working shortly, Soares said that the rescue operation would "take quite a while" as the cage could bring only 300 workers of the 3,200 miners on duty to the surface every half hour.
Managers at the mine, based to the southwest of Johannesburg, were in constant contact with the trapped workers who had access both to water and ventilation, she added.
However a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) feared that the workers were in danger as a result of "suffocating" heat.
"It is very dangerous underground," NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka told Agence France-Presse.
"The temperatures are very high, between 30 and 40 (degrees Celsius/86 and 104 Fahrenheit), and they are 2,150 meters deep. They may suffocate."
Two miners were killed in late July after land caved in at a mine in South Africa's North West province while five other miners died late last year at after a rockfall at a site to the west of Johannesburg.
................Mining has always been a dangerous profession, but no one ever wants anything bad to happen to miners. While we may look upon our hoardes of precious and base metals and anticipate their rise in prices and value, we tend to forget the hard, gritty and tortuous work that takes place to extract the metals from the ground.
I can only ask that you pray for the safe return of these miners to the surface during this time.
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(This applies to other blogs/forums, didn't mean to annoy anyone here with this)
Starve the Trolls, don't feed or encourage them.
Destroy the Moonbat breeding caves.
Moonbat, A winged troll.
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