Miners Trapped

AN OPERATION was under way today to rescue around 3,000 South African gold miners trapped a mile underground when a falling pipe damaged their lift.

The mine company began rescuing workers through a smaller shaft and estimated it would take 10 hours to get them all out.

Early today, a company spokesman said about 350 miners had been evacuated so far.

There were no injuries and there was no immediate danger to any of the workers in Harmony Gold Mining’s Elandsrand Mine, the company and union bosses said. Peter Bailey, health and safety chairman for the National Mineworkers Union, said the first 74 reached the surface at 1am and were all doing well.

The miners were trapped at a level slightly more than a mile underground when a hydraulic pressure pipe blew out at a weld at the mine outside Carletonville, near Johannesburg.

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