There is a potential tragedy unfolding in South Africa, as mroe than 3,000 miners have been trapped in a gold mine.
About 3,000 miners were trapped underground Wednesday when a water pipe burst and probably caused a shaft to collapse in a South African gold mine, officials said. There were no immediate reports of any injuries at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine near Johannesburg.
A company executive said officials have been in contact with the trapped workers and expect to rescue them over the next 24 hours. Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said on MSNBC that the miners have been receiving food and water. He said the rescuers would evacuate the miners over the next day using a small cage in another shaft, but the process would be a slow one.
We should send them our best wishes, and prayers, and hope that the optimism of the mining official's will be proven correct. Amazing that 3,000 miners would be inside a mine at one time anyway. There is more about the company below:
Harmony Gold Mining Company specializes in turning old digs into new digs. The company generally buys under-performing gold operations and turns them into low-cost, high-productivity mines. Harmony is South Africa's third largest gold miner and among the world's largest as well. South Africa accounts for the vast majority of its sales, about 90%. The company produces more than 3 million ounces of gold annually and has 56 million ounces in reserves. Outside of South Africa, it also operates mines in Australia and exploration projects in Peru and Papua New Guinea.
Harmony is the only South African gold mining company with its own dedicated refinery and gold fabrication plants. Harmony Pure Gold is gold of South African origin, produced and manufactured to the highest quality standards, and guaranteed by modern production and laboratory facilities.
Sourced from mines up to 2,500 meters deep, and extracted from rock formed more than 3 billion years ago, Harmony Pure Gold is the finest gold from the African continent.
We shall keep an eye on the news updates, and hope for a happy ending!
trapped
Showing posts with label trapped. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trapped. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Search WILL Continue For Utah Miners
There are been a change in plans from this morning to this afternoon, as it was just announced that search efforts for the missing Utah miners will continue.
Despite three weeks of drilling and digging that have revealed no signs of life from six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine, an attorney for families of the miners said Sunday the search will continue. Lawyer Colin King said federal and company officials told him and the miners' relatives that a robotic camera would be lowered into a hole drilled during previous efforts to find the men.
The robotic camera was used at the World Trade Centers after 9/11, as it has the ability to move about the rubble. This is a hopeful sign for the miner's families who were becoming despondent over the talk of ending the search efforts. May this new device finally find these miner's and give the families some closer.
robotic camera
Despite three weeks of drilling and digging that have revealed no signs of life from six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine, an attorney for families of the miners said Sunday the search will continue. Lawyer Colin King said federal and company officials told him and the miners' relatives that a robotic camera would be lowered into a hole drilled during previous efforts to find the men.
The robotic camera was used at the World Trade Centers after 9/11, as it has the ability to move about the rubble. This is a hopeful sign for the miner's families who were becoming despondent over the talk of ending the search efforts. May this new device finally find these miner's and give the families some closer.
robotic camera
6th Hole In Utah Mine Finds Nothing
In a story at Yahoo News this morning the news is not good. The sixth hole drilled to find the miners in Utah, did not find any sign of them.
What next? That was the question remaining after a drill punched a sixth hole through a mine shaft and found no sign of six miners last seen before a massive collapse nearly three weeks ago. Federal safety officials told families of the missing miners they would conduct testing — air samples, signaling in hopes of a response from the men, and dropping a video camera into the mine shaft — but have been less than hopeful about the results, which were expected to be announced Sunday.
The families are obviously upset and want them to continue looking for the miners until they find them, no matter how long it takes. There was some speculation that they might try a seventh hole, but it was not high on their priority list. The search should continue through drilling holes, as long as it does not put anyone else in danger.
I have been wondering if there is some other means of detecting open spaces underground, where they might be holed up. One method I looked up was GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), and I am not sure if it is viable in the type of ground where the mine is located, but is anyone looking into these other possibilities. I have a link to the wikipedia information for a deeper explanation of GPR, but basically it uses radio waves to find things underground, and can penetrate anywhere from 0.3 centimeters to 15 miles depending on the make-up of the ground it is being used on, and its' electrical conductivity.
These miners deserve every legitimate effort be made to find and recover them, and my hopes are that Mr. Murray and company will do the right thing and keep looking for a while longer. Let the families of the miners know that everything humanely or technically possible was done, before making the decision to turn this mine into a tomb.
sixth
GPR
What next? That was the question remaining after a drill punched a sixth hole through a mine shaft and found no sign of six miners last seen before a massive collapse nearly three weeks ago. Federal safety officials told families of the missing miners they would conduct testing — air samples, signaling in hopes of a response from the men, and dropping a video camera into the mine shaft — but have been less than hopeful about the results, which were expected to be announced Sunday.
The families are obviously upset and want them to continue looking for the miners until they find them, no matter how long it takes. There was some speculation that they might try a seventh hole, but it was not high on their priority list. The search should continue through drilling holes, as long as it does not put anyone else in danger.
I have been wondering if there is some other means of detecting open spaces underground, where they might be holed up. One method I looked up was GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), and I am not sure if it is viable in the type of ground where the mine is located, but is anyone looking into these other possibilities. I have a link to the wikipedia information for a deeper explanation of GPR, but basically it uses radio waves to find things underground, and can penetrate anywhere from 0.3 centimeters to 15 miles depending on the make-up of the ground it is being used on, and its' electrical conductivity.
These miners deserve every legitimate effort be made to find and recover them, and my hopes are that Mr. Murray and company will do the right thing and keep looking for a while longer. Let the families of the miners know that everything humanely or technically possible was done, before making the decision to turn this mine into a tomb.
sixth
GPR
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
