Eskom warns of theft and vandalism as power lines collapse at Sibanye mine

Eskom has warned of the effect of theft and vandalism to its infrastructure after power lines at Sibanye-Stillwater mine collapsed earlier this week, causing an outage which the power provider says left mineworkers trapped underground.

According to Eskom, the incident happened in Randfontein, west of Johannesburg, on Monday when the miners had problems resurfacing “due to a supply interruption caused by power lines that fell, as the integrity of the pylons along these lines was compromised by theft and vandalism”.

A spokesperson for the miner said, however, the miners weren't trapped, as a generator kicked in and they could be brought up safely.

Eskom Gauteng said in a statement that Cooke shaft 1/Cooke, Cooke shaft 3/Kagiso and Panvlakte/Cooke reduction’s 132 kV lines fell during a storm after the integrity of the pylons along these lines had been compromised.

“The pylon structures were weakened by the theft of the tower members and the unstable ground caused by digging around the foundation. Production in the gold extracting mine came to a halt, while Eskom worked to restore supply at significantly high costs.

“Theft of tower members leads to the instability and collapse of the pylons that carry high-voltage power lines, which then pose a serious safety risk to the public. This criminal practice has an additionally devastating impact on the economy and on Eskom’s ability to sustain the provision of electricity.”

Supply was restored to two shafts, Cooke shaft 1/Cooke and Panvlakte/Cooke, and the miners were safely evacuated.

“Eskom technicians are still on site and working around the clock to energise Cooke shaft 3/Kagiso,” the ailing utility said.

Mashangu Xivambu, Eskom’s maintenance and operations senior manager in Gauteng, said Eskom had “recently reported that vandalism and theft have extended to include pylons whose tower members are often stolen by unscrupulous criminal elements, resulting in the steel structures collapsing.

“It is disturbing that this happens a week after we raised concern about incidents of theft and vandalism of pylons,” he said.

Reached for comment, Sibanye spokesperson James Wellsted confirmed the interruption but said the company was able to resolve the situation timeously.

“The incident affecting power to the operations occurred at about 3.30pm and there were about 20 people (care and maintenance crews) who were safely brought up to surface by 6pm after we restored emergency power.”

He confirmed that the incident happened at Sibanye's Cooke operations, while the care and maintenance crews were maintaining the infrastructure.

Operations there have been suspended since 2017, Wellsted said.

“The Cooke mines were placed on care and maintenance in 2017, partly because of issues we were having with illegal mining and employee collusion and haven’t been in operation since. The processing plant on surface processes dump material still, but no production from underground.”

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