Illegal miners asked for body bags, Harmony says

This is not the new thing,Government is aware of the whole thing and they just ignored the the call made.Maybe we should start to hold the government liable in the court of law.

> Maybe we should start to hold the government liable in the court of law.

Good luck with that.

Once again the government's short-sightedness has resulted in more deaths. I guess they still think that black lives are cheap.

What I don't understand is what the miners are doing with the rock they mined, unless they are selling it to the mining companies. How do they extract the gold without proper equipment?

Those mines were closed for a reason. If people want to go and take their lives into their own hands and break the law, and die in the process so be it.

The fact that these men go down there armed says alot about their motives. This is not a tragedy.

The governement didn't send those people undergound. The government doesn't encourage anyone to deal in criminal activities. The people go for illegal mining because they want a short cut to a lavish life style. None of them does something for the community from revenue of their loot. What needs to be pepped up is management systems to prevent unauthorised access to underground workings.

I don't get your reasoning on this, why should govt be held responsible. Criminals died while committing a crime. Should govt be held responsible when cash-in-transit gang members are shot during a shootout with the armed guards - is that what you're thinking?

We must be careful of making govt responsible for our stupidity. Already many believe govt should be responsible for ensuring they put on a condom before having sex. We the citizens are spreading HIV every single day and we hold govt responsible for it - go figure!

All the parties involved must look at how this people get underground. It might be that there is serious inside role play thus easily having these people underground. even the company's employees are playing a major role in that.

I am asking myself if this ILLEGAL MINERS are perhaps just HUNGRY DESPERATE JOBLESS people. I think that many ILLEGAL acts these days are done for this reason. HUNGER. DESPERATE. And JOBLESS. You can imagine the circumstances that this people must be working in. One wonders that if there were LEGAL jobs available, whether they still would have chosen this death trap path?

Reply to Donn Edwards: the illegal miners often target "carbon leader". This 1-3cm thick layer is soft and has a very high gold content. The gold is probably extracted with mercury before the concentrate is smuggled to the surface.

Wealth, Greed, Laws, Democracy and fairness are very difficult to deal with. Its seems as its easy to see the wrongs done elsewhere, whilst in South Africa most blacks are struggling to make ends meet. To see people trying to make a living in such an environment which is unfavourable for the blacks, might seem to be racial, is it. The rainbow nation seems not be be as balanced as we are told to think, as not even one white person died, does that mean that whites are not struggling or what? Soon its going to be blamed on Zuma, Mugabe and ANC for failing to solve the African problem. Personally I am tired of this argument, its been over played now. Solutions lets just work within Africa and remove the status quo or those who think, its their entitlement to be owning properties, businesses, mines and the last say. Lets look at stopping people from dividing us, whilst exploiting us. Lets keep our eyes wide opened and focus on what we need to achieve without asking outsiders for their imput, because we never stick our noses in their affairs. In the UK the Parlimentarians have been robbing their taxpayers, hiring their relatives, friends and cronies, but we have not heard a word from our white gods in South Africa, who think they are in the know.

Yes, Mr Mkhize, you are so right... "Wealth, Greed, Laws, Democracy and fairness are very difficult to deal with"... in South Africa.
I agree, "lets just work within Africa and remove the status quo or those who think, its their entitlement to be owning properties, businesses, mines and the last say"... and when we have removed "them" we give to those who ARE entitled to be owning properties, businesses, mines and the last say!
I am with you: "we have not heard a word from our white gods in South Africa, who think they are in the know"... and why should we? We should only hear from our black gods in South Africa, no in Southern Africa, no in AFRICA, who KNOW that they are in the know!