3000 African gold miners trapped!

[blackstone]

Harmony says 3,200 South African gold miners trapped

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Some 3,200 miners were trapped underground on Wednesday at a South African mine belonging to the world's fifth biggest gold producer, the Harmony Gold company said.
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Harmony spokeswoman Amelia Soares said the workers at the Elandsrand mine were trapped about 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) after an electrical cable of a lift carrying workers to the surface snapped at around 0800 GMT (4 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday.

"They were underground when the accident happened and they were not able to surface because an electric feeder cable that is connected to the mine lift was severed," she said.

Soares said mine engineers were trying to retrieve the workers by lowering an adjacent lift to their position. She said the rescue operation could last well into Thursday morning, as it may only be possible to lift out a few hundred at a time.

Production at Elandsrand had halted for the day and would remain so on Thursday, she said.


:angry:

[RNK]

And yet 3 white miners die in Fuckhole, USA, and the whole world cries about it.

Are the miners okay? Any casualties?

[blackstone]

Thankfully, there are no casualties. If there were, it would have been a devastating blow to the families and mining industries. They are currently rescuing the miners, now and they all should be successfully recovered by days end.



The accident prompted allegations of the industry cutting safety corners in the name of profit — and accusations from the government that mine owner Harmony Gold Mining Co. did not bother to inform it of the potentially devastating crisis.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_...uth_africa_mine (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_re_af/south_africa_mine)

South Africa is the world's largest gold producer. It also has enormous gold ore reserves representing 40% of global reserves.

95% of South Africa's gold mines are underground operations. Declining grades of the mines and the increased depth of mining and a shift in the gold price, costs for these operations had begun to rise and as a result production has been steadily falling. The gold mining industry is the largest sector of mining industry. It constitutes around 60% of South Africa's mining labor force. One way to combat this tendency of the rate of profit to fall was to disenfranchise these workers. The other way, which that brief quote notes, is cutting safety corners. Gold is the largest mineral income earner for South Africa. Therefore, the future of South Africa's economy, relies on the future of gold productivity. As i noted, some operations have become more dangerous due to declining grades and tunneling deeper in the mines.

Closing this mine or other potentially dangerous mines undercuts their operations to slow down the falling rate of profit and slow down gold productivity. This affects not only South Africa's economy, but also the world, who relies on SA's wealth of gold.

The bourgeois won't make a fuss about it, for those very reasons. In fact, the government is complaining, because Harmony Gold Mining Co.(owner of said mine) did not bother to inform it of the potentially devastating crisis. The Minister of Minerals and Energy had to find out about it like everyone else did, on the 6 o clock news!

[Karl Marx's Camel]

And yet 3 white miners die in Fuckhole, USA, and the whole world cries about it.

I know you are a maoist, but... Let's not speak negatively about people just because they are white. ;)

[which doctor]

I heard it was only 300 miners. I have a hard time believing 3200 people trapped in a mine at once, but I don't know much about mines.

[Iron]

Originally posted by Karl Marx's [email protected] 04, 2007 08:22 pm

And yet 3 white miners die in Fuckhole, USA, and the whole world cries about it.

I know you are a maoist, but... Let's not speak negatively about people just because they are white. ;)
hes not speaking negatively about white people, hes Commenting about the USA white surpramces nature. atleast thats how i read it

and poor miners good there all ok

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 01:49 am
And yet 3 white miners die in Fuckhole, USA, and the whole world cries about it.
Just to put this out there, a good number of those miners were Latino. IIRC, the mine authorities (who were completely at fault for what happened) actually caused a small controversy by refusing to accomodate the fact that many of the miners' family members couldn't speak any English at all.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 08:24 pm
I heard it was only 300 miners. I have a hard time believing 3200 people trapped in a mine at once, but I don't know much about mines.
I when you imagine a mine, you probably think of a coal mine or something of the sort. Mines, like the one in South Africa, are huge and deep, and can accommodate well over 300 people.