Silicosis miners fight on

South African miners have vowed to take their silicosis lawsuit against London-listed Anglo American to the South African courts after a UK court refused to hear their case.

The High Court in London ruled this week that it did not have jurisdiction over claims by miners that they fell victim to the deadly lung disease while working in the company's South African mines.

The miners plan to appeal against that decision but will press ahead with individual cases in the South African legal system, said lawyer Zanele Mbuyisa.

"In the next two days we will have the first 50 claims and it would go further on a [continuous] basis," she said. South African and British lawyers initially filed the class action for 450 men who had worked on gold mines from 1960 to 1998. "Several hundred more" have been added to the suit, according to Mbuyisa.

The miners claimed that they contracted the disease, which is incurable, from inhaling silica dust while drilling in gold mines.

Silica dust lodges in the lungs and permanently scars them. The result is silicosis. Symptoms include persistent coughing and shortness of breath. Silicosis often leads to tuberculosis and death.

Anglo American welcomed the ruling, agreeing that a British court "does not have jurisdiction to hear this claim", spokesman Hulisani Rasivhaga said. The firm moved its headquarters from Johannesburg to London in 1999, a year after grouping its gold operations into AngloGold, now AngloGold Ashanti. It has since sold its gold interests.

"[The] ruling was a pyrrhic victory for Anglo American, which, as the largest gold mining company over the past 50 years, still has to face compelling claims by thousands of miners affected by dust-related lung diseases," said Richard Meeran, of Leigh Day, which is representing the miners.

"Since the judge gave permission to appeal, the UK jurisdiction issue remains alive," he said.

The cases to be filed in South Africa will be separate from a class action suit filed earlier this year against the South African arm of Anglo American and 29 other defendants.

It follows a case first lodged in 2004 by 18 former gold miners who said they contracted silicosis at Anglo's President Steyn mine in the Free State. Four of the 18 men have died since their claims were instituted.