Residents ‘blasting’ out with complaints to colliery
As this matter has been labelled as a safety concern for the residents, a meeting was called for the management team of Uitspan Colliery to address the community
Residents that are situated around the Uitspan Colliery are concerned about their homes and well being after numerous complaints was lodged to various ward councillors about the same problem.
On August 7 a meeting was held at Laerskool Panorama for all these residents with the same concerns, the blasting operations of Uitspan Colliery.
The concerns of more than 70 residents is nothing new to this particular mine as SABC reported on the same problem in June 2019 where residents from Klarinet complained about the damages to their property due to the blasting that’s taking place near the residential areas.
“I moved into this house in 2014 and the structure was perfect but after Uitspan Coal Mine started their operations, now with every blast the new cracks that appear on a weekly basis only widen,” said Ms Vutlhlari Mayebase from Klarinet.
As this matter has been labelled as a safety concern for the residents, a meeting was called for the management team of Uitspan Colliery to address the community.
“We will pay up for any damages caused by our mining and blasting; we will get experts to investigate and analyse if the so called damages were caused by the blasting operations,” Mr Malcolm Ford said at the meeting.
Furious residents started to throw their concerns at Ford but he kept on denying that the mining operations are causing any damages.
“Everybody can keep on complaining about us mining in this area but we are here to stay and we will be your neighbours for a while,” Ford added.
The only solution that was given at the meeting is to set up a seismograph that can be used to measure and record ground vibration at each complainant’s house.
“It all comes down to this following fact: If your windows do not crack due to the blasting there is no way your foundation or walls will crack,” Ford further stated.
WITBANK NEWS went to some of the houses of the complainants and found that each house had more than just a crack and was visible from a distance.
“We never had these types of problems in the past, but since the blasting of that coal mine started the cracks are getting more and worse day by day,” Ms Hettie Illman, house mother of Huis Betsie Louw told WITBANK NEWS.
Although the meeting ended without any long term solution from Uitspan Colliery, residents were luckily left with future ‘promises’ about the Second Avenue Bridge in Blancheville.
