Golden Star Resources has confirmed two fatalities at their Prestea Underground mine site on 29th December 2017.

A statement from Golden Star says that preliminary investigations suggest that the two employees succumbed to smoke inhalation sickness at the hospital following exposure to blasting gasses.

The President and Chief Executive of Golden Star, Sam Coetzer expressed sadness at the incident. According to him, “We are deeply saddened by the passing of two of our colleagues.

On behalf of us all at Golden Star, and particularly the close-knit team at Prestea, we extend our sincerest condolences to the individuals’ family and friends. Safety is our highest priority and we take great care in ensuring that all of our underground team members have self-rescuers and that they are trained to use them correctly. We are conducting further investigations to understand why this tragedy occurred and how to prevent it from happening again.”

The unfortunate incident led to the temporary suspension of operations at the Prestea underground to allow for investigations to be conducted.

However, the mine has commenced full operations as further investigations continue.