Just over 1,800 mine staff had to be extracted from a shaft after a number of rails fell down it.
Barely two weeks after a near five-month strike ended at Sibanye-Stillwater’s South African gold operations, the company saw as many as 1,800 workers stuck underground in one of its shafts in an incident that took place at around 1pm at one of the company’s platinum mines near Rustenburg.
The company said in a statement: “The shaft inspection confirmed that it was safe to hoist employees from the 14th level of the Thembelani shaft. More than 1,500 employees have been safely brought to surface, with the remaining employees being gradually hoisted to surface.”Company spokesman James Wellsted said earlier in the day they would try to get the workers to the surface through another shaft nearby, though this turned out not to be necessary.
“Shaft personnel are removing the rails from the shaft and conducting an inspection to determine if there has been any structural damage to the shaft, following which a decision will be made to either use the Thembelani shaft should it be safe to do so to remove employees from underground, or the second outlet at the adjacent Khuseleka shaft,” said the company via an emailed statement.
Thoane alleged there was a lack of supervision and criticised the company for not taking the necessary precautions. He expressed concerns for his members.
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