The Mineral and Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe has described the death of 11 mineworkers and injury of more than 70 at the Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd mine in Rustenburg, as a disaster.
He said his department will fully investigate the fatal accident, which occurred on Monday afternoon when miners were being hoisted up to surface level when the conveyance they were in, suddenly started descending rapidly.
“It’s quite a sad incident and it dented our efforts to move towards zero harm in the industry. In 2022 we reduced the number of fatalities to 49, that was the lowest number. We will continue investing and improving health and safety in the mines. We were on the track to there, we were at 41 and there was this disaster,” said Mantashe during a media briefing at the mine’s offices and after conducting an inspection in loco.
The minister appealed for the formal processes to take their course, adding that there’ll be an investigation that will be followed by an inquiry.
Implats has sent a message of condolences to the deceased families and of those injured in the accident and are being provided with ongoing support.
“As a mining company we take full accountability. This is our business, it’s our employees, our family and we would endeavor to be as transparent to all stakeholders involved, including the media, in giving full disclosure as we navigate through this absolute horrific human tragedy. We will not leave a single stone unturned to find out what caused the incident and to avoid recurrence,” said Implats Chief Executive Officer, Nico Muller.
He added that because of this incident, mine operations have been suspended until they’re able to “determine the failure that caused this accident, and until they can provide assurance that no possibility exists of repeating this at any part of the business.”
“There were 86 employees that were affected in total. All of them have been brought to the surface. Seventy-five of those employees have been admitted to hospital, there are 10 in critical care, one employee has been airlifted to Milpark Hospital, and the other nine in ICUs in regional hospitals,” added Muller.
Meanwhile, the President of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, AMCU, Joseph Mathunjwa, said all those responsible for the disaster must be charged with culpable homicide.
“AMCU has been calling for the amendment of mine and the health safety act, for these company bosses to be held accountable and charged with culpable homicide. Some of these accidents are repeatable accidents, it could have been avoided,” said Mathunjwa who was speaking on the sidelines of the media briefing.
The National Union of Mineworkers, NUM, said it is concerned that this is not the first incident in recent times.
“It happened in 1995 number 2 shaft where 104 workers died, also in Limpopo two years back 3 workers died. There might be a system failure and there should be a thorough investigation to check what is wrong with either device that they put there,” explained NUM Health and Safety Secretary Masibulele Naki.
