JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Wednesday remembered the 104 mineworkers that were killed in an accident at AngloGold’s Vaal Reefs mine in 1995.
On May 10 that year, a locomotive broke through safety barriers and fell into a lift shaft, landing on a cage transporting people to the surface. The cage plunged 460 m to the bottom of the shaft in what has been one of the world’s worst elevator disasters.
The NUM said that the tragedy led to the establishment of the Mine Health and Safety Act with health and safety rights in 1996, giving workers the right to refuse to do dangerous work or withdraw from a dangerous workplace without fear of victimisation; the right to education and training; the right to information and the right to representation and participation.
The disaster also resulted in the establishment of the Vaal Reefs Disaster Trust, started by the NUM and AngloGold to assist and care for the wives and dependants of the deceased. The disaster left 316 children without fathers and 109 widows without husbands.
“The trust that was established is doing well in taking care of the beneficiaries with more than 80 children of the fallen comrades at tertiary level,” the NUM said in a statement.