Photograph by Staci Lichterman
South African rescue workers are trying to free the nine remaining miners trapped underground after a fire at the Doornkop gold mine near Johannesburg.
Eight of the trapped miners have been rescued after they managed to reach a “refuge bay”, where water and compressed air is kept for such emergency incidents. However, there are nine more workers trapped underground with their whereabouts unaccounted for and the smoke and dangers of rock falls are hindering rescue efforts.
The fire reportedly originated 1,700m underground, although there is little evidence to determine how the fire was started.
South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has blamed seismic activity in the area causing a rock fall and damaging electrical cables, sparking the fire, and have called for an investigation, saying:
We call for an urgent investigation to root cause of the incident as we know there are technology to actively monitor build up of seismicity