Mimosa halts operations

In a statement Mimosa managing director Mr Winston Chitando said mining operations had been halted following the incident.

 

He said normal operations would resume on Monday.

“It is anticipated that for the first 19 days, mining output will be at an average of 70 percent of normal production, increasing to 100 percent by Monday 18 June, 2012,” said Mr Chitando.

“The mining production loss during this period is estimated at 75 000 tonnes of ore, which is more than covered by the current surface stockpile of about 140 000 tonnes of ore.

“As a result, production of platinum ounces for the month and the quarter will not be affected and is expected to be on budget.”

He, however, said the processing plant operations were not affected by the fire that was confined to underground operations, adding that the fire was extinguished late on Tuesday.

Said Mr Chitando: “Further updates will be provided as and when more information becomes available.

“We wish to confirm that we managed to avoid injuries to employees and minimise damage to equipment as a result of activation of our emergency preparedness procedures which were successfully applied.”

He said the fire that broke out of the mine was only put out late on Tuesday after all the 178 trapped employees had been evacuated.

Operations at Mimosa are divided into two distinct processes, namely mining operations and processing plant operations.

However, some of the workers who spoke to Chronicle on condition of anonymity said the two weeks off they had been given by the mine were not enough.

“Personally, I want to confess that I had a very difficult experience following the incident.

“I was busy working on my machine when I heard an emergency siren resulting in hordes of my colleagues stampeding for safety from the inclined shaft,” said one of the workers.

“I then panicked and thought the earth was falling on me when I realised that there was thick smoke in the shaft I was working in. It was very scary and I think we need to undergo some psychological counselling before we can resume work. I witnessed some people collapsing following the incident,” he said.

The workers said there was chaos underground with the miners throwing away their emergency kits while running to safety.

“No one knew what was happening and everyone was concentrating on getting to safety. As a result there was commotion with some throwing their helmets away,” said the worker.

Another miner said a number of them spent the whole night at a “refugee” bay praying for their lives.

“You know when such an accident occurs, you will never understand what’s going on and when we were finally at a refugee bay, a safe place underground, one of my colleagues who are members of apostolic sects suggested that we pray.

“We then prayed for the whole night and I want to believe we were the last group to be rescued,” he said.

The workers said it was the first such incident at Mimosa.

“I had never seen any accident for the past seven years I have worked at Mimosa and this being the first one, it was very scary,” he said.

Sources within the giant platinum mine yesterday said the only major injuries were experienced by the rescue teams.

“There were no injuries from the employees’ side but we had two people from the Zimasco rescue team who were injured during the rescue operation. One was treated and discharged while the other who is suspected to have inhaled some dangerous substances is still hospitalised,” said the source.

A prominent Gweru medical doctor Dr Thomas Ndebele said the employees who were trapped underground following the fire could end up suffering from diseases such as tuberculosis and lung cancer.

He said this would, however, depend on the time the employees were exposed to dangerous underground chemicals.

“The obvious disease that could end up affecting such employees could be lung cancer but this then depends on the amount of time they were exposed to this confined place while inhaling the carbon from the burning conveyor belt,” he said.

Dr Ndebele said other diseases that were likely to affect the employees would also depend on the minerals which are being mined at Mimosa.

“It will depend on the mineral that is found underground. If it is asbestos, it would be asbestosis and if it’s another mineral then there are diseases associated with that mineral that they are likely to face,” he said.

At least 178 workers narrowly escaped the fire which broke out underground at the mine on Monday.