IRIN Focus on mine deaths

South Africa’s mining industry is one of the most dangerous in the world with an accident rate that is unacceptably high, analysts told IRIN this week. In one of the first accidents this year, six mineworkers were killed last week in a rockfall caused by a seismic event at a black-owned gold mining company. More than 100 other mineworkers were reportedly injured. According to statistics provided to IRIN by the office of the Government Mining Engineer (GME), between 1984 to 1993 a total of 6,966 mineworkers were killed in underground mining accidents, nearly half of whom (3,275) perished in gold mines. Between 1994 and 1998, a total of 2,264 mineworkers were killed, and the gold mines accounted for 1,634 of these fatalities, added the GME’s figures. The numbers of injuries resulting from these accidents is much higher. Between 1984 and 1998, a total of about 139,000 mineworkers were seriously injured, with the gold mines being responsible for the bulk of the injuries (126,130). Peter Bunkell, public affairs manager of South Africa’s Chamber of Mines, admitted that conditions in South Africa’s gold mining industry are dangerous. He told IRIN: “South Africa’s gold is mined 3 km underground and deeper, which makes them vulnerable to seismic events. There is therefore a relation between the frequency of accidents and the depth at which the gold is mined.” South Africa’s mines, which employed a total of 283,212 workers in 1998, are matched only by Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Papua New Guinea and Pakistan in their fatality rates, noted a 1995 commission of inquiry into mine safety. Mine specialists said the accident rate has improved over the last five years, but was still unacceptable. The mining analyst said most fatal accidents involve less than 10 workers. “These are everyday events on the mines and they account for by far the greatest number of deaths,” said the analyst, who added: “Disasters only account for between 5 and 15 percent of annual deaths.” Sources in the government’s Department of Minerals and Energy Affairs (DMEA) told IRIN that negligence, racism and production pressures also contribute to accidents. “Many of the accidents in gold mines are caused by rockfalls and rockbursts,” a government mining surveyor told IRIN. He alleged that in some cases: “White shift bosses, who are supposed to conduct an inspection before a shift goes down the shaft, usually delegate this task to team leaders, who are mainly black, and are not trained for that purpose.” He added that underground support techniques are also inadequate. “One mining company has been fined a total of US $5,000 on two different occasions for the same offence of drilling between support pillars.” Another DMEA official said both supervisors and labourers underground show a care-free attitude towards safety. “The practice of operating locomotives whose brakes don’t work is widespread underground,” the DMEA inspector told IRIN. “The lack of knowledge and understanding by mineworkers of their rights concerning safety opens them to abuse by supervisors. When a worker is given an instruction by a white supervisor, this will be carried out even if it poses a safety risk.” The report by the commission of inquiry, the most extensive ever conducted on health and safety on the mines, also raised the dangers of mineworkers contracting fatal lung diseases. It said that 4,000 miners develop tuberculosis every year and that 60 percent of those who develop TB may die in two years. The report added: “An 18-year-old man who starts a career in mining at the stope face will have a one-in-two to one-in-three chance of being disabled from accident or disease.”