{"id":8712,"date":"2012-03-09T02:59:22","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T00:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/twenty-illegal-miners-feared-dead-in-s-africa\/"},"modified":"2012-03-09T02:59:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T00:59:22","slug":"twenty-illegal-miners-feared-dead-in-s-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/twenty-illegal-miners-feared-dead-in-s-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty illegal miners feared dead in S.Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, March 8<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Up to twenty illegal<br \/>\nminers were suspected killed after a rock fall at an abandoned<br \/>\nmine in South Africa, a union said on Thursday.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>There have been growing fears for the safety of unlicensed<br \/>\nminers still working in abandoned shafts in Africa&#8217;s biggest<br \/>\neconomy.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One illegal miner was seriously injured and, according to<br \/>\nhim, 20 killed in a rock fall as a result of illegal mining<br \/>\nactivities in a mine located between the Grootvlei and the<br \/>\nGravelotte mines on the East Rand,&#8221; the Solidarity union said in<br \/>\na statement.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Grootvlei site is currently looked after by liquidators.<br \/>\nThe site had been temporarily managed by a firm run by relatives<br \/>\nof President Jacob Zuma and former president Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa, which has the world&#8217;s deepest gold mines, has<br \/>\na dire safety record compared with its peers in the<br \/>\nindustrialised world.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 2010, four suspected illegal miners were shot dead<br \/>\nunderground at Grootvlei.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These mines are turning into &#8216;shafts of death&#8217;,&#8221; said<br \/>\nSolidarity deputy general secretary Gideon du Plessis.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Until the assets are finally sold off, no one is going to<br \/>\ntake full responsibility to stop illegal mining activities at<br \/>\nthe mines, to secure the mine shafts adequately and to get them<br \/>\ninto operation again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman for the department of mineral resources<br \/>\nconfirmed that an incident at Grootvlei had taken place, but<br \/>\ndeclined to confirm the number of fatalities. A government mines<br \/>\ninspector said that at least two people had been found dead.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Police said it was too early to confirm the number of dead.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Andrew Heavens)<\/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, March 8 (Reuters) &#8211; Up to twenty illegal miners were suspected killed after a rock fall at an abandoned mine in South Africa, a union said on Thursday. There have been growing fears for the safety of unlicensed miners still working in abandoned shafts in Africa&#8217;s biggest economy. &#8220;One illegal miner was seriously injured [&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-8712","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\/8712","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=8712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}