A 21-year-old miner died shortly after a sandbank in the Mazaruni area collapsed last Friday burying him in the pit where he had been working.

Phillip France

Phillip France of Zeelugt, West Coast Demerara had already died by the time fellow miners dug him from the pit.
However, France was still taken to a medical centre where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
It was the latest in a series of such deaths.

“Friday about 1.30 in de afternoon this thing happen…he de working and I don’t know if he didn’t concentrating or wah,” fellow miner Randy Williams recalled. “There was this branka [sandbank] over he and it collapse all of a sudden and bury he in sand.”

According to Williams, it took him and other miners about five minutes to dig France from the pit. By the time they got the man out, he said, he wasn’t breathing and his neck appeared to be broken.
“There was a big tree root at de bottom of de pit he been working in,” Williams said yesterday. “I feel he head slam into that after all that sand fall on he.”

Meanwhile, France’s brother-in-law told Stabroek News yesterday that the young man lived with his grandparents.
France, according to him, was the only means of support for his grandmother. The owner of the mine, the man said, has indicated that he will stand the funeral expenses.

It is unclear whether the incident, which is classified as an industrial accident, has been reported to the relevant department of the Ministry of Labour. Efforts made to contact France’s employer were futile.

“He promised us that he will pay for the funeral,” France’s brother-in-law said. “But we didn’t hear anything about some sort of compensation for the grandparents…they need it right now because he used to provide for them.”

The incident occurred at a mine called `Surinamo’ which, according to France’s colleagues, is located in the vicinity of the Mazaruni River (Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni). France is one of several miners who have died recently in similar circumstances.