|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
42 miners trapped after South Africa quake
An earthquake shook parts of northern South Africa on Wednesday, trapping 42 miners underground, damaging buildings and causing scores of minor injuries, officials and news media said.
The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5, was centered near Klerksdorp, 125 miles southwest of Johannesburg, said Ian Saunders of the National Seismograph Network at the Department of Geosciences in Pretoria.
The temblor trapped the workers 1 1/2 miles underground at a gold mine, the South African Press Association reported.
"Rescue teams are working to open entry tunnels that were closed by rock falls," Ilja Graulich, a spokesman for mine operator DRDGold, told the agency. He said the company did not know if any of the stranded miners was injured.
"We are digging. We are digging," he said.
He said 2,380 miners had been brought to safety on the surface, 778 were awaiting lifts to the surface, and 23 had been injured.
About 40 people in Stilfontein, 10 miles northeast of Klerksdorp, suffered minor injuries and structural damage forced the evacuation of several buildings, authorities said. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.
Saunders told SAPA the largest earthquake in South Africa hit in the Western Cape in 1969 with a magnitude of 6.1. A quake of magnitude 5 can cause considerable damage. |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
