TWO more bodies were yesterday recovered from the collapsed gold mine at Pepper Creek, Konawaruk, near Mowasi, Region 8 (Potaro/Siparuni), bringing the total recovered to  nine men, but identification of the dead continues to pose a challenge to investigators.Efforts to recover the body of the tenth miner were ongoing up to late yesterday afternoon.
Sources involved said that the recovery efforts had been dogged by intermittent rainfall, and that to date information on the status of the operations had not been speedily available due to the remoteness of the location.
They hope to locate the body of the tenth missing miner sometime today.
Of the nine bodies recovered, only three have been positively identified.
They are Brian Brittlebank, 46, of Wisroc Housing Scheme, Wismar; Raymond August, 17, of 229 Bent Street, Dartmouth Village, Essequibo Coast; and Michael Gardener Moore, 26, of Better Hope, East Coast Demerara.
Of the nine bodies recovered, five are in Georgetown at the Lyken Funeral Home, including the three identified.
Investigators are hoping that relatives will show up to identify the six other men who have been unidentified to date.
Seventeen miners were assigned to two dredges working in the pit on Sunday last when the walls caved in.
Seven of them made it out alive but ten were trapped under the mud and rubble.
Both the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) described the tragedy to be due to a fatal combination of circumstances.

The GGDMA disclosed that the accident was due to “criminal negligence” on the part of the operator.

GGDMA Engineer Colin Sparman disclosed that his determination was that the mining face and pit walls were too high and too steep, were almost vertical and that the operation was too close to the face and walls.

He said that with the rains and with water jetting from two dredges, the ground became saturated and the soil became unconsolidated.

The surrounding material became very fluid “like porridge” and suddenly avalanched into the lowest parts of the pit where the men were working.

Commissioner of the GGMC, Mr. Rickford Vieira, said that a Court Injunction had prevented the Commission from carrying out its lawful functions of monitoring and inspecting the ill-fated mining operation.

Investigations into the disaster, described as the worst ever in the history of mining in Guyana, are continuing.

by Clifford Stanley