South Africa: Miners demand safety first
South Africa's Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has called on the mining industry to address safety concerns after 240,000 mine workers downed tools this week in the country's first strike over safety standards.
The commission's intervention followed the release of statistics that put the death toll among miners at 200 this year, mainly caused by rock falls and explosions underground.
According to the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, the industry employers' organisation, 199 miners were killed in 2006 and 202 died in 2005. However, their figures showed that the number of deaths has more than halved since 1996, when 463 miners were killed in South African mines. The industry employed 458,600 miners in 2006.
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