Miners trapped after South African earthquake

[emad]

RTE

09 March 2005 16:13

An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale has left 42 miners trapped 2400m underground in a gold mine near the central South African town of Klerksdorp.

The quake had its epicentre near the town of Stilfontein, 155 km southwest of Johannesburg.

A police spokesman said at least 40 people were slightly injured in the towns of Klerksdorp and Stilfontein after the tremor struck.

The quake was thought to have been activated by mining operations.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0309/quake.html

[amber dog democrat]

1. Thinking of M Traver's Dark as a Dungeon

as true today as when written then. God speed to the rescuers.

[pie]

2. Trapped a mile and a half down!

[NorthernSpy]

3. "There is never a mine blown skyward now..."

...But we're buried alive for you.
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God! We have paid it in.

We have fed you all for a thousand years—
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we're told it's your legal share;
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! We have bought it fair.

from "We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years"
author unknown
1908 or eariler

[NorthernSpy]

4. update: one dead, one missing; all others rescued!

The miners have managed to rescue all of their fellow workers, except for one who died in the quake, and another who is thought to be alive, but hasn't been reached yet:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10255673.htm

STILFONTEIN, South Africa, March 10 (Reuters) - Rescuers scoured mine shafts on Thursday for a South African miner trapped hundreds of metres (yards) underground after an earthquake killed one of his workmates and injured three others.

(...)

Three remaining survivors were hauled out of the mine on stretchers on Thursday morning, badly injured and covered in grime after rescuers carried them six km along damaged tunnels.

"You can see the elation on their faces. It's a reward in itself," Darren Vorkel, leader of one of the rescue teams that spent hours manually moving fallen rock to reach the men. "There's a lot of broken rock, sporadic falls, it's very hot."

Mine officials said the search for the missing man would continue until he was found.

"We hope for the best," said Vorkel. "We have a fairly good idea where he is."

Most of the mineshafts haven't been closed. DRDGOLD has sent the subsequent shifts into other parts of mine as usual, as though nothing had happened.

Such is the company's lust for gold, I suppose.