One of six Sibanye-Stillwater employees discharged after seismic event

One of the six Sibanye-Stillwater employees that were hospitalised after the seismic incident at the Masakhane mine, Driefontein operations, was discharged and is in good health, the company said on Friday.

“The other five rescued employees remain in a stable condition and are making good progress. The Company will continue to ensure that these employees receive appropriate medical attention and ongoing support and counselling,” head of investor relations, James Wellsted, said.

“Sibanye-Stillwater management has been focused over the course of the past week on ensuring the wellbeing and providing support to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased and injured employees.”

On May 3, at around 12.15pm, a seismic event  — recording a local magnitude of 2.5 — occurred on the western side of the Driefontein operations. An emergency control room was established and paramedics and mine rescue teams deployed to the mine after one of the underground teams failed to respond.

“The unaccounted for team subsequently responded and it was established that the installed support and other safety systems in the area had prevented significant damage, and as a result, there were no injuries or safety issues resulting from the seismic event. A mine rescue team had already been deployed and was making its way underground, when an unrelated second seismic event — recording a local magnitude of 2.2 — occurred at about 1.20pm, on the eastern side of the Masakhane mine approximately 2.5km away from the first event,” Wellsted said.

Wellsted said although it recorded a lower magnitude, the second seismic event caused a working stope — 40 level,-27 East, 7 West panel —  which was close to the epicentre of the seismic event to be inundated with loose rocks, trapping 13 employees working in the stope.

He said no other stopes in the mine were affected and all remaining employees at Driefontein were safely evacuated from the underground operations.

“Shortly after the incident, rescue efforts began in earnest. All relevant stakeholders including the [department of mineral resources] DMR and unions were alerted about the incident and once the missing employees had been identified, efforts to contact their families were made. The families were offered transport to the mine, where they received regular updates on the rescue mission, and support, trauma counselling and medical care,” Wellsted said.

“Specially trained rescue teams from Mine Rescue Services, supported by Sibanye-Stillwater employees and guided by management in the emergency control room, worked relentlessly in extremely challenging conditions, for more than 40 hours to rescue and recover the missing employees, with the last employee being recovered at about 7.30am on Saturday 5 May 2018.

“The fact that there were no further injuries despite the trying conditions, is testament to the training and commitment of these teams. We would like to thank all of the Mine Rescue Services brigadesmen from across the SA Mining industry, who volunteered for this essential service. A special note of appreciation goes to our own employees who volunteered and worked non-stop through the entire rescue period alongside the Mine Rescue Services brigadesmen. You are all true heroes.”

Wellsted said that there was a memorial service at Driefontein on Thursday, and the with funeral and remembrance services for the deceased employees was scheduled for the weekend.

“Sibanye-Stillwater management will be conducting a thorough investigation across the entire Masakhane mine, in order to assess the impact on the operations, of the numerous seismic events that occurred during the last week,” he said.

“The underground inspection is expected to take approximately one week, and operations at the Masakhane mine will remain suspended during this period. Production from the rest of the mines making up the Driefontein operations will continue as normal.”

He said the planned gold production from the Driefontein operations was approximately 50kg of gold per day, with the Masakhane mine comprising approximately 20 percent or 11kg (354oz) per day.

However, since the incident approximately 230kg (7,395oz) of planned gold production is estimated to have been lost, Wellsted said.

In 2017 Sibanye-Stillwater’s SA Gold operations produced 43,634kg (1.4 million oz) of gold.

Wellsted said after the seismic event, blasting operations were suspended across the Driefontein operations. He said blasting operations subsequently resumed at the unaffected Driefontein mines on May 5.

– African News Agency (ANA)