A female worker at De Beer's Venetia diamond mine in Limpopo, South Africa crushed to death after she fell onto a conveyer belt, a police spokesperson has said.
Mining Weekly quoted Brigadier Motjafela Mojapelo as saying that the incident happened last Sunday.
''The conveyer belt ultimately dragged her into a stone scrubber where her body was found trapped between the rocks with multiple wounds,” he said.
“A case of culpable homicide has since been opened.''
Venetia Mine was set to shift from open pit mining in 2023 to steady-state underground production in 2026.
De Beers had initially noted that underground operations would begin production in 2021, yielding approximately 96 million carats during the life of the mine.
The project, which commenced in 2013, forms part of a $2 billion investment by De Beers into Venetia and would expand the life of the mine by at least 20 years from 2023 until 2045.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished