While initial indications are that there are no miners trapped underground following a 5.5-magnitude earthquake that hit central South Africa on Tuesday, gold miner AngloGold Ashanti has confirmed that 17 of its employees at the Great Noligwa and Moab Khotsong mines, at its Vaal River operations, sustained minor injuries and were being attended to on site by emergency medical staff.

The company said in a statement that power supply to its Vaal River mines was temporarily interrupted during the seismic event, which originated some 8 km underground, but had since been largely restored.

The miner was now in the process of establishing telephonic contact with all mining crews, in line with its safety protocols.

“Our priority is the safe passage of our employees from underground. Again, in line with safety protocols, engineers are inspecting shaft infrastructure and at those shafts where this work is complete, hoisting of people to surface has already begun. All back-up power generators and underground safety systems remain operational,” AngloGold stated.

The group’s West Wits operations, which host the Mponeng and Tau Tona mines – the two deepest mines in the world – were not affected.

Meanwhile, Sibanye Gold’s James Wellsted told Mining Weekly Online that there had been no fall-of-ground at its operation in the area, but confirmed that the miners below ground had felt the tremor.

“The miners will be ending their shift shortly and we’ll warn the shift replacing them that they should be careful, but we’ve had no injuries,” he commented.

According to Reuters, officials at AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Gold Fields said they had felt the tremors in their headquarters but had so far received no reports of anything untoward at their mines.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that the tremor was centred in Orkney; a town around 120 km south-west of Johannesburg and host to a high concentration of deep gold mines. At least one man was killed when a wall collapsed on top of him in a mining village adjacent to the town.