At least 20 De Beers employees die on the road
A bus carrying workers from a major diamond mine crashed near the Zimbabwe border on Sunday afternoon.
Illustrative image.
AFP
At least twenty employees of mining company De Beers died in a road accident in South Africa on Sunday, on a bus providing links to the country’s largest diamond mine, Venetia.
Limpopo Province (North) Department of Transport said in a statement that “a bus carrying workers from the Venetia Mine was involved in an accident on Sunday afternoon. The accident “claimed the lives of at least twenty mine workers.” The cause has yet to be determined.
A spokesman for the department contacted by AFP said the accident happened at 4:00pm GMT, 25km from the mine, in the town of Musina, which borders Zimbabwe in the north of the country. “The bus hit a truck,” said Vongani Chauke.
South Africa has one of the most developed road networks on the continent, but one of the worst performing countries in terms of road safety.
Metamorphosis
Located in the bush near the border of Botswana and Zimbabwe, the Venetia Mine has been operated by the De Beers Group for over thirty years. It represents 40% of South Africa’s annual diamond production and employs more than 4,300 people, including many from neighboring communities.
Formerly the country’s largest open-pit mine, the site has undergone a transformation to compensate for the shortage of diamonds. De Beers invested two billion dollars in a mega underground mining project and completed open pit mining in December.
The group, which plans to extract four million carats a year, announced in July that it would begin diamond production from underground mines dug under an old open-pit mine, providing access to rocks buried a few thousand meters away.
AFP
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