The Spark September 2010

by Terry Bell

In the stygian depths of South Africa’s mines, 556 mainly young men
died between 2007 and 2009.  It is a shocking statistic, nearly four
times the international benchmark for mine deaths per hour worked.
But it is just the tip of a huge, largely ignored, mass of horrendous suffering and exploitation that has blighted the country for more than a century.

Add to the 556 the hundreds of men who die each year from preventable
lung diseases and the thousands who continue to suffer or retreat to
their homes, injured and incapacitated, most with little and, all too
often, no compensation. [Read more…]