S. African Court Clears 7 in Mine Fire Fatal to 177

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Seven mine employees were acquitted Thursday of homicide charges arising from South Africa’s worst gold mine disaster, an underground fire that killed 177 men.

Six of the defendants who held supervisory positions at the Kinross gold mine in 1986 also were acquitted on all lesser charges. A welder, Frederick Viviers, pleaded guilty to two charges of violating mining regulations and was fined $50.

The fire broke out at Kinross on Sept. 16, 1986, in a tunnel that had been sprayed six years earlier with a polyurethene foam to prevent corrosion. Experts said toxic fumes from the foam contributed to the high death toll.

During the trial, an expert witness for the General Union Mining Corp., which owns Kinross, testified that the company had ordered a fire-retardant form and had been supplied with the wrong variety.

Magistrate J. W. Pieterse, who presided at the trial in the Transvaal province town of Witbank near Kinross, accepted this testimony. He said the mine staff could not be held responsible because they had not known they were supplied with the wrong kind of foam.