{"id":10621,"date":"2012-05-08T00:53:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T22:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/s-africa-mine-deaths-fall-to-monthly-low-minister\/"},"modified":"2012-05-08T00:53:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T22:53:12","slug":"s-africa-mine-deaths-fall-to-monthly-low-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-mine-deaths-fall-to-monthly-low-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa mine deaths fall to monthly low -minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> May 7 (Reuters) &#8211; A safety crackdown on the<br \/>\nSouth African mining industry reduced the number of fatalities<br \/>\nin the country&#8217;s mines to three in April, from an average of 11<br \/>\nor more a month, mines minister Susan Shabangu said.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There has been a significant improvement on health and<br \/>\nsafety since the department intensified enforcement measures at<br \/>\nthe mines,&#8221; Shabangu said in a speech to the National Council of<br \/>\nProvinces dated May 3, which was obtained by Reuters on Monday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In fact, the month of April 2012 has recorded the lowest<br \/>\nfatalities ever, of three deaths, when compared with other<br \/>\nhistorical figures, which were generally more than 11 deaths per<br \/>\nmonth,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This year to date, 39 people have lost their lives in South<br \/>\nAfrican mines compared with 42 in the same period in 2011, while<br \/>\nthe number of mine injuries fell 35 percent to 668, Shabangu<br \/>\nsaid in the speech.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s mines are the world&#8217;s deepest and among the<br \/>\nmost dangerous, and Shabangu&#8217;s ministry has been leading a drive<br \/>\nthat has included a surge in inspections, and stoppages for<br \/>\nsafety violations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s mining output fell sharply in volume terms in<br \/>\nFebruary, the latest month for which data is available,<br \/>\nhighlighting the impact of the safety push.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Production of platinum group metals (PGMs) fell 47.6 percent<br \/>\nwhile gold output fell 11.5 percent in volume terms in February.<br \/>\nTotal mineral production was down 14.5 percent compared with the<br \/>\nsame month last year.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Sherilee Lakmidas, editing by Ed Stoddard and<br \/>\nDavid Hulmes)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOHANNESBURG May 7 (Reuters) &#8211; A safety crackdown on the South African mining industry reduced the number of fatalities in the country&#8217;s mines to three in April, from an average of 11 or more a month, mines minister Susan Shabangu said. &#8220;There has been a significant improvement on health and safety since the department intensified [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}