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The Chilean Miners plight The Realised Dangers
The Chilean Miners plight The Realised Dangers
The world stood still on the 5th August 2010, following a cave-in leaving thirty three Chilean miners trapped 2,300
sheffield,
south yorkshire,
United Kingdom
(prbd.net)
18/10/2010
The world stood still on the 5th August 2010, following a cave-in leaving thirty three Chilean miners trapped 2,300 feet (700 metres) underground in a small copper and gold mine.
It wasn’t until the 22nd August, when the miners, located near the northern Chilean city of Copiapó, 500 miles (800km) north of Santiago, made contact with the outside world. A note from them simply said, “The 33 of us in the shelter are well.”
Over the following days and weeks, food, water and medicine were lowered to the miners until they were safely rescued on the 13th October; nearly 10 weeks after the start of their troubles.
The world’s media focused and closely monitored the miner’s plight over the 10 week ordeal and the President of Chile, Sebastian Pinera sacked the head of national mining regulator Sernageomin, vowing a major overhaul of the body, which monitors mine safety.
Alan Roddis, Managing Director of G.A.E.A. Limited, said, “The recent actions undertaken by President Pinera will be the start of a full global mineral extraction review on mining safety, The repercussions will be far reaching”.
Roddis continues, “Minerals are an essential part of our daily life’s, from food supplements to gemstone jewelry. Safe mineral extraction, specifically miner safety, is fundamental to sustaining and developing this very vital industry sector”.
Mining occurs in practically all countries in some form or other and each country has its own regulatory body. For example, beautiful Orange River Quartz crystals are mined in South Africa, Labradorite from Zambia, Ruby gemstones from Thailand, Pink Tourmaline from India and Aquamarine from Israel, to name but a few places. From coal to gold extraction, mining is the rock bed of many subsequent processes and industries, which depend on it.
Roddis from www.gaealimited.com says, The bottom line is that there will always be differences in health and safety legislation across different countries and continents and the courage and diligence of the miners and their families will be tested from time to time as it has been in Chile recently. The idealised solution is to have standardized minimum global mining safety legislation, which is fully controlled and audited by an international team, with heavy fines and imprisonment for offending companies and people.
If the world is not already aware of the dangers involved in mineral mining, the future Hollywood film documenting the plight of the Chilean miners will no doubt help to bring the issue fully home; making us all realise the dangers these men and women face in their pursuit for mineral extraction, and the courage they have to get through issues such as cave-ins.
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