Bodies of several miners identified

Last Updated on Tuesday, 19 May 2015, 15:31 by GxMedia

The lifeless bodies of five the ten miners who failed to escape when a mining pit caved – in Mousie, Region Eight (Potaro – Siparuni) over the weekend were this morning taken to the Lyken Funeral Home and three of them have been identified.

The three men are 17 – year – old Raymond August of 229 Benn Street Dartmouth, Essequibo, 26 – year – old Michael Gardener Moore of Better Hope East Coast Demerara, and Bobby Brian Errol Buttle Bank of 98 Wisrock Housing Scheme, Linden.

Demerara Waves Online News is informed that the bodies were taken the parlour around 4:30 this morning, after which relatives were notified.

The incident occurred at approximately 2:30 PM on Sunday. A total of eighteen persons were working in the pit at the time, but seven managed to escape when the incident occurred. They were taken to the Mahdia Hospital for treatment.

Six of the bodies were excavated on Monday. It is unclear where the sixth body is currently being held.

August’s aunt told this news outlet that he had been working in the pit along with two relatives – Alex Greene, 26 and Regan Greene, 20. Both Greenes survived the accident.

Several of Moore’s relatives presented themselves at the parlour this morning to identify his body and several, including his sister and mother, were inconsolable. Moore’s brother, Randy Wilson, shared that he (Moore) had been in the interior since January 4th, and that his relatives had been pleading with him to go home to spend some time with them.

“We heard that he pit caved in and some of them save. So we was hoping that he was one of them who save, you know?” the dead man’s brother explained.

Moore’s brother -in – law was at his own mining camp when he heard of the accident. “Night before the last I heard about the accident but I didn’t know my brother-in-law was involved,” the man said. He shared that he travelled to the mining site when he heard about the accident to ascertain for himself what happened.

At the site the man said he observed “…a lot of overburden packed at the top (of the pit) and the men is deh at the bottom.” He added that he came to understand that water was seeping-in under the overburden.

“…It was kinda like a lapse you gah seh by management cause it,” he opined.

“I spoke to the boss…I said this is a bad working condition because you know…is May/June time (rainy season), and when you mining in May/June you gotta take more precaution than if you mining maybe in August or November or whatever.” Residents in Mahdia had said on Sunday that the region has been experiencing heavy rainfall for several days, and that mining areas have become more susceptible to erosion and cave-ins due to soil instability.

The man also shared that the owner of the site is taking a long while to excavate the four bodies which remain buried because “…so much stuff fell on them…like is a lot of boulders and these kind if things. He gotta take time remember? He can’t take the excavator and dig for them because sometimes you take the excavator and dig for them and buss them up.”