'Hundreds of trapped gold miners rescued in South Africa', 22 Feb 2014: Almost 500 workers in a mine run by Harmony Gold Mining…South Africa’s third-largest…have been rescued after being trapped by a fire..No injuries were reported…Harmony said 486 workers at the Kusasalethu mine, its biggest, were underground and 287 were confirmed to be safe in refuge bays after a blaze broke out. The fire started…about 2,300 meters (7,546 feet) below ground, the company said. The blaze may have begun during maintenance on an air cooler. Investigations into the cause of the fire will be conducted jointly by the mine’s management and the government’s Department of Mineral Resources, Harmony said…Harmony reported the worst safety record among gold-mining peers with 1.62 lost-time incidents in its South Africa mines per 200,000 hours worked in 2014, according to…a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. A rockfall at Harmony’s Doornkop site a year ago started a fire underground and killed nine workers, the most deaths in a single event in the company’s history.