Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane has urged mines to step up health and safety efforts, after at least three miners died at a Harmony Gold mine.
"We are concerned about the accidents we are seeing in the industry," Zwane said in a statement on Monday.
"As we head towards the last quarter of the year‚ we are asking that employers and the workforce remain alert and continue to prioritise safety‚ and as the regulator we will be increasing inspections‚" he said.
"We continue to engage with business and labour unions to look at how we can together ensure that the positive strides we have made on health and safety are not reversed."
Harmony said on Monday that a third miner had died at its Kusasalethu mine in Carletonville‚ where five miners were trapped on Friday morning after a tremor caused sections of the gold mine outside Johannesburg to collapse.
The company said rescue workers would continue the search.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has voiced its concern about the risky nature of mining in SA, but said it "applauds Harmony management for stopping all operations".
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), noting a similar incident at the Tau Lekoa mine in Orkney on July 22, in which four workers died, asked that the industry learn lessons from these two incidents.
"We sell our labour, not our lives, lungs, and limbs. One death is one death too many as we’re talking about breadwinners of the families," Erick Gcilitshana, NUM’s health and safety secretary said.
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