South Africa platinum mine lift plunge kills 11
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Transcript
00:00 And now to South Africa, where 11 miners lost their lives
00:03 when an elevator carrying 86 workers
00:06 plunged 200 metres in a platinum mine.
00:09 The company Impala Platinum said the accident
00:12 in the northern city of Rustenburg
00:14 was the darkest day in its history.
00:17 Eunice Masson tells the story.
00:18 An investigation is underway to determine the cause
00:26 of a fatal accident at the Impala Platinum Mine
00:29 in the northwest province.
00:31 Operations at the mine have come to a total standstill.
00:35 On Monday, 11 workers were killed and 75 injured
00:40 when the lift they were in rapidly descended.
00:44 The incident occurred on the eve of the Mine Safe Conference,
00:50 which focuses on safety and health in the mining sector.
00:54 The Minister for Resources and Energy, Gwede Muntashe,
00:59 visited the site after addressing the conference.
01:02 He described the site as a disaster
01:05 and called for an investigation.
01:08 He also said that the many deaths
01:12 dented efforts of the country to improve mine safety.
01:16 Now, South Africa has made significant strides
01:19 in improving the safety in the mining industry,
01:23 but it continues to battle the illegal mining operations
01:29 that still take place.
01:30 In May, 31 illegal miners died in what is believed
01:34 to have been a gas explosion.
01:37 It was not an isolated incident,
01:40 and many of those deaths go unreported.