Miner fatally wounded following mud-rush which kills three others

Miner fatally wounded following mud-rush which kills three others

JOHANNESBURG (MarketWatch)

8th June 2007

A miner was fatally wounded overnight at Anglo Platinum Ltd.'s (AMS.JO) Rustenburg in South Africa, the same mine where three miners this week died in a mud-rush, South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said Friday.

The trade union said it is concerned by the increasing number of fatalities in the mining industry.

"The miner has been trapped for more than eleven hours now and hope to find him alive is gradually dissipating," NUM said.

"It is a sorry state of affairs that miners do dangerous work and get paid peanuts while in actual fact dangerous work like mining should be well remunerated" said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni. "We will therefore not compromise on anything in terms of our negotiations this year as miners cannot continue to risk their lives for a pittance."

NUM said it strongly condemns employers' actions in not following proper safety procedures in pursuit of beating production targets.

It added that it condemns the lack of training and failure to follow safety procedures at Anglo Platinum, and called on the state to intervene.