Mineral and Petroleum Sources Minister Gwede Mantashe and Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister David Mahlobo have carried out a joint oversight go to to ferrochrome and manganese producer Samancor’s Dikwena Chrome facility, in Brits, within the North West, following the structural collapse of a sidewall on the mine’s tailings facility that occurred on August 13.
Throughout the go to, the Ministers met with mine administration, acquired a briefing on the operational dynamics surrounding the occasion and inspected the affected space to judge environmental impacts and infrastructure disruptions.
Expressing concern and reiterating authorities’s dedication to the precept of zero hurt, Mantashe acknowledged the lucky absence of fatalities whereas sharply specializing in the necessity for system accountability and regulatory compliance.
“We’re very fortunate that there is no such thing as a fatality. Managing slime dams can’t be handled as a water concern. It’s a mining concern, inherently linked to the core mining operations and structural accountability,” he highlights.
In the meantime, Mahlobo provides that tailings infrastructure should preserve whole structural integrity throughout each part of operation.
The Division of Water and Sanitation says it has deployed groups, alongside specialised dam security engineering items, to conduct thorough water high quality sampling, containment checks and environmental threat assessments to safeguard surrounding communities and mitigate downstream impacts.
Investigations on the precise technical and operational causes of the sidewall failure stay lively and ongoing.
