News / Africa
SA earthquake, 17 miners injured at AngloGold Ashanti
05 Aug 2014 at 14:35hrs | Views
Emergency personnel are no longer on standby as inspectors have said no miners are trapped underground.
AngloGold Ashanti today confirmed that an earthquake of 5.3 magnitude occurred near its Vaal River Operations in South Africa, at a depth of roughly 8km.
Power to its Vaal River mines was temporarily interrupted and has since been mostly restored. Early indications are that 17 of its employees at the Great Noligwa and Moab Khotsong mines sustained minor injuries and are being attended to on site by emergency medical staff.
"We are in the process of establishing telephonic contact with all mining crews, in line with our safety protocols." said the mining company in a Stock Exchange News Services report.
"This earthquake is severely dangerous because the epicentre is located right below Orkney and Klerksdorp," the US Geological Survey said.
Another report on the website said a school building in Klerksdorp shook so badly that pupils were thrown off balance.
"Our school has three storeys and I was in the middle when it shook. We dove for the door along with our geography teacher and we were told to evacuate the building," said a pupil on the website.
"We are on the football field, damage [was] done to multiple classrooms."
AngloGold Ashanti today confirmed that an earthquake of 5.3 magnitude occurred near its Vaal River Operations in South Africa, at a depth of roughly 8km.
Power to its Vaal River mines was temporarily interrupted and has since been mostly restored. Early indications are that 17 of its employees at the Great Noligwa and Moab Khotsong mines sustained minor injuries and are being attended to on site by emergency medical staff.
"We are in the process of establishing telephonic contact with all mining crews, in line with our safety protocols." said the mining company in a Stock Exchange News Services report.
Another report on the website said a school building in Klerksdorp shook so badly that pupils were thrown off balance.
"Our school has three storeys and I was in the middle when it shook. We dove for the door along with our geography teacher and we were told to evacuate the building," said a pupil on the website.
"We are on the football field, damage [was] done to multiple classrooms."
Source - Byo24News
