Several Workers Killed at Sibanye Gold Mine in South Africa

(Bloomberg) -- Several workers who went missing Monday at a Sibanye Gold Ltd. mine in South Africa have been found dead, bringing the number of people killed at the company’s operations this year to more than a dozen.

Sibanye said three workers had died and two were still missing after they entered an abandoned working place at the Kloof Ikamva Shaft. The company said it’s working on a rescue operation, but didn’t mention whether production had been affected. In a separate statement, the National Union of Mineworkers said four bodies had been uncovered.

South African gold mines are among the world’s deepest and oldest, with workers going further underground to access new ore in a country that’s been mined commercially for over a century. While safety has improved since the end of whites-only rule in 1994, fatalities in the sector increased last year for the first time in a decade.

It’s also been a difficult year for Sibanye. Last month, the miner said a number of workers died at the company’s Driefontein mine after a cave in. NUM said it is angry and concerned about the number of incidents at Sibanye’s mines.

To contact the reporters on this story: Felix Njini in Johannesburg at fnjini@bloomberg.net;Thomas Biesheuvel in London at tbiesheuvel@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Nicholas Larkin

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