Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[basserdan]

*** Gold related post (DROOY) ***

Basserdan, What have you read lately about DROOY? Going under? Have any articles that explains their situation?
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Hi qwave,
Have you seen this?

S.Africa Quake Traps Miners, Injures Dozens

41 minutes ago

By Alistair Thomson

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - An earthquake measuring around 5.0 on the Richter scale hit a gold mining area of South Africa Wednesday, injuring dozens of people and trapping 42 miners as tunnels collapsed deep underground.

The quake, felt in Johannesburg at 12:16 p.m. (1016 GMT), had its epicenter near the town of Stilfontein, 97 miles southwest of Johannesburg, experts at the Council for Geoscience in Pretoria said.

Miners deep in a shaft near Silfontein were cut off by rockfalls, officials said.

"Some of the access tunnels have been closed by fallen rock ... the guys are digging like mad at the moment trying to get to them," spokesman Ilja Graulich at gold mining company DRDGOLD told Reuters.

The 42 miners, around 1.5 miles underground, had life support systems with air and water to sustain themselves, he added.

The quake, which jolted buildings as far away as Johannesburg, injured 23 miners at DRDGOLD's North West mines, and others in Stilfontein.

"There is quite serious damage ... We are aware of 38 people that were injured, but they are minor injuries, no serious injuries," Police Superintendent Louis Jacobs told Reuters from Stilfontein by telephone.

DRD had evacuated around three quarters of the 3,200 miners underground when the quake hit the area, a key mining region for South Africa which is the world's biggest gold and platinum producer.

DRDGOLD said its seismic monitoring system picked up four large seismic events between 1015 and 1022 GMT and a number of smaller ones.

In Stilfontein, Jacobs said the main concern of emergency services was the structural safety of those buildings damaged.

"We have sent out engineers from the council to check the buildings that were damaged, to make sure that they are safe," he said.

Experts at the Council for Geoscience said small earthquakes triggered by underground mining operations happen in South Africa on an almost daily basis, but Wednesday's quake was exceptional.

"It is difficult to determine the cause. The magnitude tells us that it is most probably a re-activation of an old fault ... a secondary effect of mining," said Ian Saunders, a geotechnologist at the Council for Geoscience.

DRDGOLD said it was too early to speculate about the cause of the quake.

Saunders's colleague, seismologist Eldridge Kgaswane, said Wednesday's quake was exceptional in being so severe.

"In normal cases you would have a magnitude of 1, 2 or in exceptional cases 3, so this is very exceptional," Kgaswane said.

Naturally occurring earthquakes are rare in South Africa. The last major one, which occurred in 1969 north of Cape Town, measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and caused extensive damage, the Council for Geoscience's Web Site said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=2&u=/nm/20050309/wl_n....