UPDATE: Rescuer speaks on Pongola mine collapse horror

‘GIVE me a ‘gwala’ (crowbar) and I will dig myself out.’

These words were among the last spoken by a trapped illegal miner buried under tons of rock after a shaft collapsed at the disused Klipwal gold mine near Pongola on Friday.

Rescue teams descended nearly 90m underground, traversing treacherous ladders and steep drops to reach a spot where five miners, part of a group of around eight, lay trapped.

Some of the illegal miners, or ‘zama zamas’ as they are known, were beyond hope.

One man was still alive and spoke to rescuers.

According to a member of one of the teams, who spoke to the Zululand Observer on condition of anonymity, the man only died the next day.

‘It was really tough. I don’t think he realised just how much rock had fallen and how futile an attempt to dig him out would be,’ he said.

The rescuer explained how the ‘zama-zamas’ had used pieces of railway tracks to create supports.

‘A number of the struts, solid railway steel, were actually bending under the weight,’ he said.

‘The roof of the shaft was cracked everywhere, with boulders the size of a man threatening to drop at any moment.’

Called off

Members of the rescue team apparently spoke to the man, believed to be from Lesotho, for the last time on Saturday morning.

Shortly thereafter, they were forced to abandon the rescue effort as the rock had become too unstable to continue moving into the shaft.

‘It was hard. The air is oppressive and it was sweltering in the shaft. There was nothing more we could do.’

It is believed the miners enter the country illegally from Lesotho and set up camps near the mine entrance.

They would then work for a few weeks before returning home.

The rescuer said that one of the miners told him he sometimes earned up to R4 000 for a nugget the size of the nail on his index finger.

KZN SAPS spokesperson Major Thulani Zwane said three other miners arrested at the mine on Friday and charged with trespassing, entering the country illegally and illegal mining, appeared in Pongola Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

The suspects were remanded into custody and the case postponed to a date as yet unconfirmed.