Two mining workers have died within just one week of each other, in separate incidents at Gold Fields’ St Ives mine and Capricorn Metals’ Karlawinda Gold Mine respectively.
The first incident occurred Tuesday 11 October at Gold Fields’ Hamlet Mine in Western Australia.
Gold Fields’ Executive Vice President, Stuart Mathews, said the company was unable to provide further details about the tragedy, or its cause.
“On behalf of our entire Gold Fields workforce we extend our condolences to their family, friends, and colleagues. This is obviously news that no one at Gold Fields or the industry more broadly wants to hear, and we are devastated at the loss of our colleague,” Mr Matthews said.
“We are unable to provide any further details but wish to assure that we are providing care and support to impacted team members and are supporting, where possible, our impacted business partner.
“We continue to work with local authorities in relation to its ongoing investigation and are now also focusing on the safe resumption of operations at St Ives.”
Just two days later, Thursday 13 October, a separate fatality was reported at Capricorn Metals’ Karlawinda Gold Mine in which a contractor associated with the company was fatally injured during a serious incident.
Mining operations at the site were temporarily suspended while emergency workers responded to the incident.
It is as yet unknown what caused the accident, Capricorn Metals Executive Chairman, Mark Clark, expressed his condolences for the victim’s family.
”Everyone at Capricorn is shocked and saddened by the fatality at the Karlawinda mine site this morning. Our deepest thoughts and condolences go out to the MACA employee’s family, friends and colleagues.”
