Posted on 02/01/2018 1:20:02 PM PST by sodpoodle
About 950 gold miners were stuck underground in South Africa on Thursday after a power cut, the mine's owner said, though the workers were not reported to be in immediate danger.
The Sibanye-Stillwater mining company said a massive power outage caused by a storm had prevented lifts from bringing the night shift to the surface at the Beatrix gold mine, near the city of Welkom.
"We have got 955 employees still underground, they are in a confined and safe area, it's the shaft waiting area (and) there is ventilation, we are supplying them with water and food," James Wellsted, spokesman for Sibanye-Stillwater, told AFP.
"So everybody is fine at the moment. We are trying to restore power so we can start hoisting them to the surface," he said, speaking on the phone from the mine. He said the depth where the miners were trapped was uncertain, but the mine has 23 levels, going down to about 1,000 metres (3280 feet) below ground.
One cable was restored during the day and 272 workers were rescued, but 955 remained trapped by early evening, the company said.
They have been underground for 24 hours. Wellsted said that engineers were struggling to get emergency generators to operate and re-start the lifts following the storm.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Prayers for their speedy rescue.
Probably more than folks that slander others on their FR homepage.
I would have thought they'd have emergency generators on-site and ready to go at all times.
Prayers needed.
The Stillwater part of the company is just up the road from where I live.
They provide a lot of jobs in this area. Hard jobs.
Being underground in a mine at all would freak me out. Can’t imagine what its like to be told you’re stuck down there.
Prayers sent up. What a horrible situation.
Their mines are so deep it gets really really hot down there , center of the earth thing
That was my thought. I was a coal miner many years ago. We didn't have emergency backup power but our elevator shaft was only about 300 feet. And we had a slope shaft (1100' on a 45 degree angle) for supplies that we could (and did) walk out in the event of a power failure. If we lost our ventilation fans we had to evacuate after 30 minutes by law.
3280 feet is 0.6 miles!!!! Too deep for this claustrophobic.
950? That’s just an enormous amount of people to be in just one mine. There must be nothing mechanized at all. Think of the air ventilation and sanitary systems alone to support them. Sounds like something out of the 1800’s or a dirt poor 3rd world $hit hole.
I toured a gold mine in Welkom years ago. Took a long time to get the thousands of feet to the bottom. The elevator car bounces up and down for some period of time when you come the the end because the cable is so long. Pitch black—only the light on your helmet to see where you’re going. 100% humidity. At least 100 degrees I’d say.
Slosh through water running on the ground. The walls of the mine are very, very, warm. The whole reef (gold bearing ore) lies at an angle, so you’re always walking up and down a hill. If you trip, you fall down into the hole where the ore is being dumped into a mining car.
The men at that time were given a loaf of bread and a bottle of vitamin enriched beer for their meal. Men from different tribes were kept on different levels to prevent faction fights.
Now a DIAMOND mine (In Kimberley) on the other hand, is brightly lit, and all the walls are painted white. It’s a lovely place to be.
An engineer friend took me 2 miles deep in a tunnel they were boring in the mountain. Nope nope nope. I was ever so glad to see sunlight and breathe fresh air again. I’ll serve fast food on the bad side of town as a career before underground mining.
I was way back in one of the weapons tunnels at the Nevada Test Site when a rat got into a transformer or something. It gets very dark, very quick. Suddenly the helmet light with it’s 4 lb belt battery didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Hi.
I didn’t a coal mine in Pittston PA for a day.
Nope, nope, nope.
5.56mm
Anthracite or bituminus?
Senior moment...
5.56mm
950+272=1222 miners - total.
South Africa has a complex history of British and Dutch colonialism. Very complicated!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa
Did, dammit did.
Sheesh.
I give up.
5.56mm
Prayers for these miners .
We do not know the depth where they were trapped, but most levels below 900 feet (and the mine goes to several thousand) are very, very hot with pumped refrigeration required. If no cooling water pumps and only limited air moving, the heat will become life-threatening shortly.
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