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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Union: 3,000 workers trapped in South African mine |
| 2007-10-04 |
| About 3,000 South African miners trapped after an accident were awaiting rescue Wednesday after waiting hours deep underground. It was expected to take a day to bring them to safety. A burst water pipe burst was believed to have caused a shaft to collapse in the gold mine near Johannesburg, union officials said. An official with Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine said the company would be able to evacuate the trapped workers over the next 24 hours. Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said on MSNBC that officials have been in contact with the trapped workers and have been sending them food and water. He said the company could evacuate the miners over the next day using a smaller cage in another shaft, but the process would be slow. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Burst water pipes usually burst. |
| Posted by: JohnnieBartlett 2007-10-04 14:54 |
| #3 Harmony Gold? But seriously, they weren't "trapped". Their elevator broke, and it apparently took some time to get the backup exit shaft's elevator working or something. Strikes me as pretty shabby that it took so long, and the access redundancy for such a large mine was so poorly thought-out. They'd have been really screwed if something serious was going on, like a real flood or a fire. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2007-10-04 09:19 |
| #2 all done: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=paMine_thu05_Mine_collapse_ud&show_article=1 |
| Posted by: newc 2007-10-04 05:10 |
| #1 LUCIANNE > no one has died, and rescue of all remining miners will likely be accomplished over another 10 hours or so. VARIOUS Netters > reports leaning to [repairable]local or specific transportation lift/system defect only. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-04 03:10 |