The Department of Energy has now revealed the number of miners who died in a gas explosion at the Virginia gold mine in Wellcome, South Africa on May 18.
Global media cited Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) reports that all the miners belonged to South Africa’s indigenous Bisotho nation and had been operating illegally in a mine that had been closed for 30 years. .
The dead are suspected to be illegal miners from neighboring Lesotho, but it is unclear when the Lesotho authorities were informed of the deaths.
The explosion is believed to have been caused by methane gas in a ventilation shaft at the Virginia Mine in Welcome City. The department also said that Lesotho’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had recently provided South African authorities with some information regarding the miners. With the help of the mine’s previous owner, it was discovered that methane levels in the ventilation shaft were very high.
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3&appId=770767426360150”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.7”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));