Delayed Reaction

Like some modern Moloch, South Africa's mining industry has long come to expect its regular sacrifice of human lives. And even though in good years South Africa has 15 times as many fatalities per ton of coal mined as the U.S., the fact that most miners are black men has kept the subject from becoming too important in South Africa. But three weeks after the Coalbrook rockfall entombed 411 blacks and six whites in the worst mining disaster in the nation's history (TIME, Feb. 1), the Union finally was working up a real case of public indignation.

The slow burn began when Johannesburg's Golden City Post, most respected of the country's African newspapers, reported that there had been an earlier severe cave-in shortly before the big blast and rockfall. Some 40 miners scrambled for the safety of the lift cage. Half were forced back at the cage entrance, reported the Post; 20 others reached the surface but found their way blocked by supervisors who ordered them back into the tunnel. Two natives who refused to go back were clapped into the mine's own jail on charges of insubordination, said the Post (and after the disaster were quietly released). Eighteen apparently persisted and found a side exit, for the Government Department of Mines last week announced that 18 natives, previously listed as dead, had all turned up alive. Minister of Mines Johannes de Klerk promised a full investigation of the Post's charges.

As to the big cave-in, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd solemnly told Parliament that after five attempts to bore through 500 ft. of earth and limestone in search of the men, "all hope" had been abandoned. But wives of three of the white miners begged for one more rescue attempt. A self-styled seer, Petrus Johannes Kleinhans, 29, had told them that he had a vision in which he saw the precise position of seven black and three white men, still alive. When he pointed to the place to dig, mine officials, who had insisted all along that there was no hope, said it was 1,100 ft. away from the nearest tunnel. Seer Kleinhans then had a second vision in which he saw all ten dying at exactly 9:15 Friday morning. Though rush rescue attempts had stopped by that time, the mine operators expect eventually to get out all of the bodies. Reason: Africans usually refuse to work in any mine where bodies have been sealed off.

For South Africans one awkward test of compassion still remained. A relief fund for the survivors had climbed past the $300,000 mark. In South Africa there is no racial equality even in death; compensation laws grant a white miner's wife a pension for life of up to $93 a month. But a Bantu widow gets only a lump sum payment, which, if prudently invested, would give a return calculated at $9 a month. At week's end keepers of the fund were trying to decide whether or not to apply a similar ratio.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.