Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe is planning a follow-up visit to the Ekapa mine, in the Northern Cape, on Friday and is expecting to receive an update from the Chief Inspector of Mines on recovery operations at the mine later today.

This follows a mud rush at the mine on February 17, which is believed to have claimed the lives of five employees who were working more than 800 m below ground at the time of the incident.

The Minister told a parliamentary portfolio committee briefing on February 24 that “a lot of water” has now been pumped from the mine, after the Council for Geoscience was called in to help find the source of water entering the mine.

Mantashe said the hope was that the removal of mud from the mine could start from February 24 and that the bodies of the employees trapped in the mine, and now presumed dead, could be recovered soon.

The Minister told the committee that the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) was insisting that the bodies of the employees be recovered.

LILY MINE COLLAPSE
While recovery efforts at Ekapa continue, the families of three people who were trapped at the Lily mine, in Barberton, Mpumalanga, in a February 2016 mine collapse, are still fighting to have the bodies of their loved ones recovered.

Political party ActionSA on February 24 said it welcomed a decision by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to accept for investigation the complaint lodged by the families of Pretty Nkambule, Solomon Nyirenda and Yvonne Mnisi in relation to the Lily mine tragedy.

Nkambule, Nyirenda and Mnisi were in a container being used as a lamp room on the day of the collapse on February 5, 2016. Seventy-six other mineworkers had become trapped in the mine that day, but were later rescued.

Efforts to retrieve the container, buried about 60 m below ground, have, however, been unsuccessful, despite many promises over the past decade that the container and the bodies would be recovered. 

In a years-long contentious battle for control of the mine, which closed down after the collapse, promises had been made by some that the bodies would be recovered, while the original mine owners said it would be too dangerous to attempt to recover the container.

The families filed a complaint with the SAHRC against the National Prosecuting Authority and the DMPR, claiming that their prolonged failure to "act decisively raises serious Constitutional and human rights concerns".

"For ten years, the families of the Lily mine victims have been denied closure, denied the return of their loved ones’ remains and denied meaningful communication from State institutions entrusted with upholding justice and accountability. This sustained inaction has compounded their suffering and undermined public confidence in the criminal justice system," ActionSA said.