Minews - Hundreds of trapped gold miners rescued in South Africa

(Minews) - Almost 500 workers in a mine run by Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd., South Africa’s third-largest producer of the metal, have been rescued after being trapped by a fire.

“They’re all out,” Charmane Russell, a spokeswoman for the company, said Sunday by phone. No injuries were reported. Operations have been halted at the site near Carletonville, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Johannesburg.

Harmony said 486 workers at the Kusasalethu mine, its biggest, were underground and 287 were confirmed to be safe in refuge bays after a blaze broke out. The fire started at 9:40 a.m. local time Sunday on the mine’s 75 level, about 2,300 meters (7,546 feet) below ground, the company said. The blaze may have begun during maintenance on an air cooler.

Investigations into the cause of the fire will be conducted jointly by the mine’s management and the government’s Department of Mineral Resources, Harmony said Monday.

Harmony was forced to shut Kusasalethu for two weeks in October after the company arrested more than 100 illegal miners and imposed new safety measures. Chief Executive Officer Graham Briggs announced a plan to turn the operation around in December to mine higher-grade ore and return to profit by the fiscal fourth-quarter.

Harmony reported the worst safety record among gold-mining peers with 1.62 lost-time incidents in its South Africa mines per 200,000 hours worked in 2014, according to Gregory Elders, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

A rockfall at Harmony’s Doornkop site a year ago started a fire underground and killed nine workers, the most deaths in a single event in the company’s history.