5 Dead in S. African Mine Incident

South Africa’s Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe has said the death toll following seismic events at the Sibanye-Stillwater mine in Driefontein now stands at five. Mantashe described the incident to journalists on Friday evening as a “disaster”. He said one of the issues the department had raised with both management and the unions was that they should have pulled those workers out during the first seismic movement, News24 reported. Mantashe added that it was unfortunate that the safety steward was one of the fatalities. Earlier on Friday mine spokesperson James Wellsted told News24 that two of the last three trapped mineworkers at the mine in Driefontein had been located.  He earlier said that a seismic event, which occurred at about 13:30 on Thursday afternoon, caused a fall of ground in an operating stope. On Friday afternoon, the mine was hit by another two seismic events.