2023-06-23 11:40:22
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — At least 31 illegal miners were reportedly killed by a gas explosion at a disused mine in South Africa more than a month ago, an event that had not been reported until now, authorities said on Thursday. Friday.
The mine search operation was delayed because the methane gas level remained dangerously high in the shaft where the miners are believed to have been killed, the National Department of Mineral and Energy Resources said in a statement.
The mine, located in the city of Welkom in the central Free State province, had been operated by the country’s largest gold mining company but closed in the 1990s, the department said.
The department, which has government jurisdiction over minorities, said it was continuing to collect details of the incident, which it believes involved unauthorized miners from neighboring Lesotho.
The miners are believed to have been killed by an explosion in Shaft 5 of the Virginia mine on May 18. The Lesotho Foreign Ministry recently provided the information to the South African authorities, according to the department.
Illegal prospecting is widespread in the former gold areas of South Africa, where miners enter often dangerous closed shafts to try to find deposits. Fatal accidents are common and sometimes go unreported because survivors fear arrest.
The mine was once owned by Harmony Gold, according to the mineral resources department. Harmony’s president is billionaire mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, one of the wealthiest men in the country and brother-in-law of the president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
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