Lily Mine victims remembered three years on

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The Department of Mineral Resources says it supports all efforts to ensure the new owners of Lily Mine in Mpumalanga are able to resume operations and find the container in which three workers were trapped underground three years ago.

Today marks three years since Pretty Nkambule, Solomon Nyirenda and Yvonne Mnisi were trapped underground at the mine when the lamp room in which they were working collapsed. To this day, the container remains underground with the three bodies.

The department says efforts to retrieve the container are important to help the families to get closure.

In May 2017, Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Godfrey Oliphant announced that the families of the three mineworkers were given R200 000.

The payments to the families were ex-gratia payments only in addition to other benefits and entitlements due to them.

The commemoration of the tragic event comes at a time when South Africa is hosting the Mining Indaba in Cape Town. – SAnews.gov.za