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Mining Tragedies

Media Statement: Dealing With Occupational Lung Disease – A Collaborative Initiative By SA Mining Companies

Five companies to seek comprehensive solution on occupational lung disease

Johannesburg, 18 November 2014: Anglo American South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and Sibanye (“the companies”) announce that they have formed an industry working group to address issues relating to compensation and medical care for occupational lung disease (OLD) in the gold mining industry in South Africa.

The companies intend to engage all stakeholders in order to work together to design and implement a comprehensive solution that is both fair to past, present and future gold mining employees, and also sustainable for the sector.

To this end, the companies are arranging initial meetings with the departments of health, labour and mineral resources, organised labour, legal representatives of claimants and other mining companies. It is intended that this will lead to an intensive engagement process during 2015 intended to lead to a comprehensive solution.

The companies believe that fairness and sustainability are necessary to any comprehensive solution. The solution needs to be a product of the engagement process that has been initiated.

The companies are among respondent companies in a number of lawsuits related to occupational lung disease. These companies do not believe that they are liable in respect of the claims brought, and they are defending these.

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Twenty-Nine Coal Mining Deaths: Should The Former CEO Go To Prison? – by Ken Silverstein (Forbes Magazine – November 17, 2014)

http://www.forbes.com/

During the 2014 Midterm Elections, most candidates for federal and state offices in Appalachia couldn’t get enough of coal — races, in essence, to see who could be the most pro-coal. Now, though, with criminal charges just announced against one of the coal barons, elected officials are running in the opposite direction.

Those living in West Virginia’s coal towns have long known of Don Blankenship, the former chief executive of Massey Energy that is now owned by Alpha Natural Resources ANR -6.9%. To shareholders, he had been a no-nonsense guy, increasing mining production while adding to Massey’s bottom line. To miners and regulators, however, he has been the ultimate hard-ass, caring nothing about the little guy.

Lacking sentimentality is not a crime. But ignoring established mine-safety laws while misleading shareholders about those priorities is illegal. That is what the U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia is alleging in its four-count indictment against Blankenship, released late last week. If found guilty of all charges, the former CEO could face up to 31 years in prison.

“He could have talked himself into believing that he knew the industry and the risks better than the government. He could also have chosen to close his eyes to the risks and was driven purely by greed. He could also try to justify it by reasoning that if someone dies, then it is simply a function of being in a dangerous business,” says Jane Barrett, professor of law and director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland Law School, in an interview.

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Don Blankenship, Former Massey Energy CEO, Indicted Over 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster – by John Raby (AP/Huffington Post – November 14, 2014)

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Don Blankenship, the steely-eyed executive once dubbed “The Dark Lord of Coal Country,” on Thursday became the highest-ranking coal official to face federal charges in the nation’s deadliest mine disaster in 40 years.

A federal grand jury indicted the former Massey Energy CEO on numerous counts of conspiracy in the April 2010 underground explosion that killed 29 men at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia.

The 43-page indictment said Blankenship “knew that UBB was committing hundreds of safety-law violations every year and that he had the ability to prevent most of the violations that UBB was committing. Yet he fostered and participated in an understanding that perpetuated UBB’s practice of routine safety violations, in order to produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money.”

His attorney, William W. Taylor III, said in a statement that Blankenship “is entirely innocent of these charges. He will fight them and he will be acquitted.”

“Don Blankenship has been a tireless advocate for mine safety,” the statement said. “His outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats has earned this indictment. He will not yield to their effort to silence him. He will not be intimidated.”

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Marikana: The end of a bitter road promises little closure – by Niren Tolsi (Mail & Guardian – November 14, 2014)

http://mg.co.za/ [South Africa]

COMMENT

Andile Yawa’s bus leaves Queenstown in the Eastern Cape at 8pm. It reaches Johannesburg’s hustle and grime at six the next morning, and Pretoria by seven.

When the Farlam commission of inquiry starts in Centurion two hours later, Yawa is there, as he has been for almost every day it has sat over the past two years. He wants to find out who was responsible for the fatal shooting of his son Cebisile on August 16 2012 at Marikana.

Yawa’s wife Nosipho says that the time they now get to spend together at home in rural Cala is similar to when her husband worked as a miner.

There is repetition, too, in the journey into South Africa’s mineral-rich hinterland that Yawa first undertook by train in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, by bus.

The route is that of the “conscripted” that Hugh Masekela laments in Stimela, and which Cebisile followed when he succeeded his father after he was medically boarded with lung disease in 2008.

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Disaster down deep — inside the 2010 Chilean mine collapse – by Héctor Tobar (National Post – November 3, 2014)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

In the San José Mine, sea level is the chief point of reference. The five-by-five-metre tunnel of the Ramp begins at Level 720, which is 720 metres above sea level. The Ramp descends into the mountain as a series of switchbacks, and then farther down becomes a spiral. Assorted machines and the men who operate them drive down past Level 200, into the part of the mountain where there are still minerals to be brought to the surface.

On the morning of Aug. 5, 2010, the men of the A shift are working as far down as Level 40, some 2,230 vertical feet below the surface, loading freshly blasted ore into a dump truck. Another group of men are at Level 60, working to fortify a passageway near a spot where a man lost a limb in an accident one month earlier. A few have gathered for a moment of rest, or idleness, in or near El Refugio, the Refuge, an enclosed space about the size of a school classroom, carved out of the rock at Level 90, that serves as both emergency shelter and break room.

The mechanics led by Juan Carlos Aguilar find respite from the oppressive heat by setting up a workshop at Level 150, in a passageway not far from the vast interior chasm called El Rajo, which translates loosely as “the Pit.” The mechanics have decided to start their workweek by asking Mario Sepúlveda to give them a demonstration of how he operates his front loader. They watch as he uses the clutch to bring the vehicle to a stop, shifting from forward directly to reverse without going into neutral first. He’s mucking up the transmission by doing this, wearing out the differential. “No one ever showed me,” Sepúlveda explains when asked why he’s operating the machine that way. “I just learned from watching.”

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Freeport’s Indonesia copper mine must improve safety or face more protests – union – by Michael Taylor and Dennys Kapa (Reuters U.S. – October 8, 2014)

http://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Workers at Freeport-McMoRan Inc’s giant Indonesian copper mine are seeking face-to-face talks with local management following a fatal accident, and may plan a further mine blockade or strike action, a union official said.

Hundreds of angry protestors blocked access for two days last week to the open-pit area of the Grasberg copper complex, where production has been halted following the death of four workers on Sept. 27. The open pit accounts for more than half of the mine’s output.

Fresh protests, blockades or strike action could be triggered if workers’ safety concerns and other demands were ignored, said Albar Sabang, a senior official at a Freeport union, potentially hindering copper exports.

“Production is important but safety is number one,” Sabang told Reuters, adding that protesting workers had demanded a meeting on Oct. 11-12 with Freeport Indonesia CEO Rozik Soetjipto. “If the demands are not met they will plan to do another protest,” he said.

The Indonesian government is investigating the accident, which involved a collision between a light vehicle carrying nine people and a haul truck, and has laid out a number of required work changes for open-pit mining to resume.

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Deadly clashes continue at African Barrick gold mine – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – August 27, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — Police have killed more villagers in clashes at a controversial Tanzanian gold mine owned by a Barrick Gold Corp. subsidiary, despite the company’s pledges to reduce the violence, researchers say.

The researchers, including a law firm and two civil society groups, say they’ve received reports that as many as 10 people have been killed this year as a result of “excessive force” by police and security guards at the North Mara mine, owned by African Barrick Gold, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick.

A spokesman for African Barrick confirmed to The Globe and Mail that “fatalities” have occurred in clashes at the mine site this year, but declined to estimate how many. It is up to the Tanzanian police to release the information, he said.

Tanzanian police have repeatedly refused to give any details on fatalities at the site. Dozens of villagers have been killed by police at the mine in the past several years, according to frequent reports from civil society groups. The company occasionally confirms some of the deaths, including a clash in which police killed five people in 2011.

The deadly clashes occur when villagers walk into the mine site in search of waste rock, from which small bits of gold can be extracted. Hundreds or even thousands of “intruders,” as they are known locally, can be involved.

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UPDATE 1-Protesters disrupt “massacre” evidence by South Africa’s Ramaphosa – by Joe Brock (Reuters India – August 11, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 11 (Reuters) – Protesters chanting “Blood on his hands” briefly halted South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s evidence on Monday at an inquiry into the police shooting of 34 striking mine workers two years ago.

Ramaphosa was a non-executive director at Lonmin when negotiations to halt a violent wildcat strike at its Marikana platinum mine ended in police shooting the strikers dead on Aug. 16, 2012. The killings, the deadliest security action since the end of apartheid in 1994, have become known as the “Marikana massacre”.

Trade unionist-turned-billionaire Ramaphosa, seen as the likely eventual successor to President Jacob Zuma, is the most prominent witness to be called by the investigation that began in October 2012 and was supposed to last four months.

As well as investigating the shootings, the commission of inquiry has a remit to look into labour relations, pay and accommodation in South Africa’s mines – issues seen as spurring the strike that preceded the killings and that have lingered through months of strikes again this year.

Ramaphosa, who led a historic strike for fairer pay for black miners under apartheid in 1987, has faced accusations of putting political pressure on the police to use force against striking miners before the shooting.

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Mass grave with hundreds of skeletons found in Bolivian mining town – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – July 27, 2014)

http://www.mining.com/

Construction workers in the southern city of Potosi, Bolivia, have uncovered the remains of hundreds of miners believed to be from the Spanish colonial era.

They mostly mined at Cerro Rico Mountain, home to what became the world’s biggest silver mine and provided the Spanish with so much of the precious metal to ship to Europe that people used to say a bridge of pure silver could be built from the top of hill to the royal palace’s entrance in Spain.

But that boom came at an extremely high price tag — an estimated eight million miners died in Potosi alone between 1500 and 1800. What it is still unclear is how those miners met their deaths.

Some say the area was an indigenous burial ground for slaves and indentured servants who may have worked in the mines.

Another explanation could be that the remains are linked to the collapse of a reservoir in Potosi during the 17th century, which killed around 2,000 people.

“We are talking about a common grave found at about 1.8 metres, and the human remains are scattered over an area of four by four metres,” Sergio Fidel, a researcher at a museum belonging to Potosi’s Tomas Frias University, told AFP.

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First Nickel’s plan for Sudbury mine draws praise – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – July 23, 2014)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The owners of First Nickel Inc. have gone “over and above” standard in determining a method to allow workers to safely re-enter and return to work in the area of Lockerby Mine in which two drillers were killed May 6.

Normand Charles Bisaillon, 49, and Marc Methe, 34, were killed by a fall of material, preceded by seismic activity

The men worked for Taurus Drilling, and were not members of Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor, which represents about 150 production and maintenance workers at the mine. But Mine Mill has been involved in the company investigation into the men’s deaths.

First Nickel released a statement Tuesday saying it has been actively cooperating with the Ministry of Labour to determine a method to safely allow workers to re-enter the 65-2 level, an underfill heading, which has been closed since the tragedy.

“Although not ordered by the ministry, First Nickel suspended its underfill operations in all areas of the mine after the accident until satisfied that workers would not be put at risk,” First Nickel said in the statement.

After consulting with outside engineers, FNI developed a plan to resume work on the 65-2 level and in underfill headings, which ensures the safety of workers.

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Coroner looking to call inquests into Sudbury mining deaths – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – June 27, 2014)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The regional supervising coroner is looking to set dates for inquests into three deaths in Sudbury mines by early fall.

It will be weeks or even months after the dates are scheduled before the inquests are held, however, based on factors such as courtroom space and the availability of expert witnesses, said Dr. David Eden

Coroner’s investigators are compiling three briefs on the June 8, 2011, deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, at Vale’s Stobie Mine and the Jan. 29, 2012, death of Stephen Perry, 47, at Vale’s Coleman Mine.

The deaths of Chenier and Fram may be the subject of a single inquest, Eden said. That will be announced when the inquests are scheduled.

Chenier and Fram were killed at the 3,000-foot level of the century-old Stobie Mine when they were overcome by a run of 350 tons of muck. Perry was killed when a 14-ton piece of rock broke from the wall at the 4,215-foot level of the main ore body at Coleman.

The amount of evidence being collected for the three briefs is “substantial,” said Eden.

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Hillcrest: Canada’s forgotten disaster – by Valerie Berenyi (Calgary Herald – June 13, 2014)

http://www.calgaryherald.com/index.html

 100 years ago 189 died in the depths of an Alberta coal mine

They say you don’t go
Say you don’t go down in the Hillcrest Mine
‘Cause it’s one short step

You might leave this world behind
And they say you don’t go
Say you don’t go down in the Hillcrest Mine

—James Keelaghan’s ballad Hillcrest Mine

Coalminer Charles Elick may have thought himself a lucky man. He survived the Frank Slide in 1903 when a massive rockslide buried part of the little town of Frank in southwestern Alberta. He and co-workers at a nearby mine were trapped by the rubble, but managed to free themselves after digging for 13 frantic hours.

Charles then relocated his growing family to the nearby mining town of Hillcrest and went back underground. His luck ran out on the sunny morning of June 19, 1914, when he said goodbye to his wife Julia, pregnant with their fifth child, and went off to work at the Hillcrest Mine. Two hours after the morning shift began, a methane gas and coal dust explosion ripped through the mine, killing Charles and 188 other men.

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Turkey needs new coal mining law after disaster -commission head – by Gulsen Solaker (Reuters India – June 10, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SOMA, Turkey, June 10 (Reuters) – Turkey needs a new coal mining law to prevent a repeat of its worst ever industrial disaster in which 301 workers were killed, the head of a commission investigating the incident said on Tuesday.

The miners were killed last month in a mine fire in Soma, a small town 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul, fuelling anger in a nation which has long had one of the world’s worst workplace safety records.

The disaster highlighted gaps in Turkish regulation, not least the lack of specific rules for the coal industry, as well as insufficiently stringent inspections, local mining experts told Reuters after of the fire.

Ali Riza Alaboyun, a deputy from the ruling AK Party who heads the parliamentary commission investigating the accident, said the highly-complex nature of coal mines required a separate set of regulations.

“By doing this, we will be able to regulate inspections and training related to coal mines separately,” Alaboyun told reporters during a visit to Soma.

Eight suspects including the chief executive of Soma Mining, which operates the facility, have been provisionally charged with “causing multiple deaths by negligence”. The company has denied any negligence on its part.

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RPT-Turkish mine disaster highlights gaps in safety regulation – by Humeyra Pamuk, Ayla Jean Yackley and Tom Bergin (Reuters India – May 29, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SOMA/ISTANBUL/LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) – Taner Yildirim was never surprised when safety inspectors turned up at the Soma mine in eastern Turkey, where 301 miners were killed this month just weeks after inspectors gave it a clean bill of health. He said he always had plenty of warning.

“They (management) tell us about a few weeks prior to the inspection; so we get ready,” the miner, who wasn’t working on the day of the disaster, told Reuters. Even then, he said there was no need to go to too much trouble to prepare for the visit.

“All the inspections I have seen are on paper. They are ‘office-based’ inspections. The plant managers and the inspectors are hand in hand and drink tea at the managers’ office,” said Yildirim, who has worked at the mine for 13 years.

The Labour Minister could not be reached directly, but his ministry, which is primarily responsible for regulating mine safety, declined to comment.

The governing AK Party has said the mine had been inspected 11 times over the past five years, sometimes unannounced, and denied there were loopholes in mining safety regulations.

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UPDATE 4-Turkey keeps three suspects in custody in mine disaster probe – by Humeyra Pamuk (Reuters India – May 19, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SOMA, Turkey, May 18 (Reuters) – A Turkish court ordered three suspects to be kept in custody on Sunday on a provisional charge of “causing multiple deaths” in last week’s mine disaster, as the last of the 301 victims were buried.

Of the remaining 22 people detained earlier, six suspects have been released but could face prosecution later. Questioning of the other 16 people was continuing. The detentions came five days after a fire sent deadly carbon monoxide coursing through the mine in the western Turkish town of Soma, causing the county’s worst ever industrial accident.

The disaster has sparked protests across Turkey, directed at mine owners accused of ignoring safety for profit, and at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government, seen as too close to industry bosses and insensitive in its response.

An initial report on the possible causes of the accident indicated the fire may have been triggered by coal heating up after it came into contact with the air, Prosecutor Bekir Sahiner told reporters outside the Soma courthouse, rejecting initial reports that a transformer explosion was responsible.

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