The body of a miner, who reportedly died after being crushed when a pit caved in, was flown out from the Echerak Backdam yesterday afternoon.
Reports are that Sean De Souza, 24, died on Saturday at the mine located along the Echerak River (about 23 miles above the Kaieteur Falls) in the Cuyuni/ Mazaruni area.
De Souza, this newspaper learnt, was already dead when other workers managed to pull him from the mining pit.
He is said to have suffered broken bones throughout the body.
The man’s body was brought to the city by police just after 1pm yesterday and is currently at the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour.
Meanwhile, when this newspaper contacted relatives of De Souza they were not keen on speaking about the incident.
“Why this have to be in the news? He was working there, he is dead and we don’t want to say anything else until investigations have been done,” a relative told Stabroek News via telephone.
This newspaper also learnt that after the incident De Souza’s mother was informed and it was she who identified him.
De Souza is the latest in a string of mining fatalities this year. Last month Anand Pooran, 32, of Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, and Moruca in the North West District and Ewert Michael Alleyne, of Grant Adventure, Lower Pomeroon died after a tree fell in a mining pit in which they were working at the mining concession. Heston Boyce, 18, of Charity, Essequibo Coast, Jason Williams also of Charity and Clifford Joseph, of Friendship, Lower Pomeroon were injured. An excavator was being used to clear a section of the mining pit when the machine struck the tree which fell into the pit.
There have been a number of incidents, some with fatal consequences, in the mining districts across Guyana in recent times. On October 27, 49-year–old Charles Anthony Simon, known as ‘Corporal’, of 111 Miles Mahdia, Potaro Road and of Lot 53, Kendall Street, Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara died on the spot after a tree fell on him while he worked at a mining pit at Mahdia. Simon and the two workers were working in a pit in the area and as he walked around in the crater a tree located at the top of the pit fell on him.
In March this year, Karan Roopnarine, 32, of Triumph, East Coast Demerara and Keith Hibbeizt, 32, a Jamaican national who resided at Long Creek, Linden Soesdyke Highway, were both pinned at the bottom of a deep pit after its walls caved in while they worked in a mining pit at While Hole in Mahdia.
The high gold price internationally has seen increased small-scale mining and riskier practices, industry watchers say.
