Quake terror: the rookie and the vet who shook it off
FOR Quinton Mthenjwa, it was like a thunderstorm and an explosion all in one; Bonani Bangani said it was a bit scary, “but not that much”.
The former is a rookie miner, the other a 10-year veteran.
The two men were among the 3 300 miners trapped underground at the epicentre of the severe earth tremor felt around South Africa on Tuesday.
Mthenjwa and Bangani work in the AngloGold Ashanti mines in the North West town of Orkney, which was worst hit by the tremor that registered 5.3 on the Richter scale and rippled as far as KwaZulu-Natal and Gaborone in Botswana.
Mthenjwa, a 32-year-old father of one, said he was panicked by the tremor.
“I was shaking,” he admitted. “I said a little prayer. I just prayed for my safety.”
He said he resigned himself to whatever fate had in store for him when he felt the earth shake. “Whatever happened would have been God’s will. There is no muti for such a thing.”
When he was finally brought to the surface — after a wait of just more than six hours — his priority was to phone home, 500km away in Libode village near Mthatha, Eastern Cape.
And news that he was safe changed the entire mood of the hamlet.
The villagers had heard about the tremor, feared for their son and everyone was in tears.
But after Mthenjwa’s call, the sense of relief was such that villagers broke into joyful song.
The miner said his family and neighbours had encouraged him to stay on in Orkney, despite the scare. There are simply no prospects of finding a job in Libode.
“They encouraged me to stay put — and pray hard,” he said.
The mines on which Mthenjwa and Bangani work are among the deepest in the world, with shafts going down between 2.4km and 2.6km.
Bangani, a rock-drill operator, was cool about the experience.
This one was hectic and I want to wipe it off my mind as much as I can
“These types of things happen underground,” he said.
But he did concede that this week’s tremor was out of the ordinary.
“It was a little bit too much,” he said. “I didn’t pray. I would have if I had been trapped by a rock fall or something.”
His apparent nonchalance disappeared when he thought of his family, however.
“I did shed a tear when I thought about my two children,” he admitted.
Bangani said that when the lights underground failed, all he could see in the beam of his headlamp was dust.
The miners who were trapped with him were told to move to the lift station — and there they waited. The tremor began at about 12.30pm, but the lift only arrived at about 6.40pm.
One of those trapped with Bangani and Mthenjwa was a Mozambican, Chisake Chissano, who said he was related to former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.
“It was a complete nightmare,” he said. “We were all scrambling for a safer place underground. Seismic situations do happen in mines, but this one was hectic and I want to wipe it off my mind as much as I can.”
He said that after the power went out in the mine, he and his fellow workers had to walk for about 20 minutes to a neighbouring shaft, from where they were hoisted to the surface.