A WAR of words has erupted between the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and the South African Institute of Race Relations over a study in which the latter claims the rail industry was killing more people than the mining sector.
The institute (SAIRR) conducted a study, released last week, over two years in each sector.
It said that the rail sector killed five times more people than the mining industry.
SAIRR spokesman Kerwin Lebone yesterday said the research organisation conducted an injury and fatality study in railway, mining, crime and security, and compared the death rate between mining and rail.
In comparing the two industries, Lebone said just over 160 people died in mining accidents in 2009 and 2010, while almost 900 were killed in railway accidents in the two years prior to that.
The research document reads:
"The majority of mining accident casualties [68%] occurred owing to the fall of ground and transportation accidents."
The rest were caused by blasting fumes or other unspecified incidents.
"Some 81% of railway accident fatalities happened when people were struck during train movements, while the remainder were as a result of fires, electric shocks, derailments and level crossing incidents."
Lebone said they compared mining and the rail sector because they were important contributors to the country's economy.
"The government is rightly concerned about mining fatalities, but seems less so about deaths on the state-owned railways," Lebone said.
However, the research has left Prasa fuming.
The organisation's spokeswoman, Nana Zenani, described the findings of the report as shocking and lacking credibility.
"There is one accident of a worker fatality in which a woman train driver was killed in Pretoria in May last year.
"Most of the people killed or injured on the railways are those who deliberately want to commit suicide or those crossing the rail line.
"SAIRR did not even contact us to ask for [accident] records," Zenani said.
"We do not know anything about this study."
She said the numbers were highly exaggerated.
SARRI's study says Prasa passenger numbers range from 3.9million a year - via the long-distance Shosholoza Meyl - to 1.7million passengers a week on Metrorail which is used by urban dwellers to commute to work daily.
'Trains kill more than the mines'
A WAR of words has erupted between the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and the South African Institute of Race Relations over a study in which the latter claims the rail industry was killing more people than the mining sector.
The institute (SAIRR) conducted a study, released last week, over two years in each sector.
It said that the rail sector killed five times more people than the mining industry.
SAIRR spokesman Kerwin Lebone yesterday said the research organisation conducted an injury and fatality study in railway, mining, crime and security, and compared the death rate between mining and rail.
In comparing the two industries, Lebone said just over 160 people died in mining accidents in 2009 and 2010, while almost 900 were killed in railway accidents in the two years prior to that.
The research document reads:
"The majority of mining accident casualties [68%] occurred owing to the fall of ground and transportation accidents."
The rest were caused by blasting fumes or other unspecified incidents.
"Some 81% of railway accident fatalities happened when people were struck during train movements, while the remainder were as a result of fires, electric shocks, derailments and level crossing incidents."
Lebone said they compared mining and the rail sector because they were important contributors to the country's economy.
"The government is rightly concerned about mining fatalities, but seems less so about deaths on the state-owned railways," Lebone said.
However, the research has left Prasa fuming.
The organisation's spokeswoman, Nana Zenani, described the findings of the report as shocking and lacking credibility.
"There is one accident of a worker fatality in which a woman train driver was killed in Pretoria in May last year.
"Most of the people killed or injured on the railways are those who deliberately want to commit suicide or those crossing the rail line.
"SAIRR did not even contact us to ask for [accident] records," Zenani said.
"We do not know anything about this study."
She said the numbers were highly exaggerated.
SARRI's study says Prasa passenger numbers range from 3.9million a year - via the long-distance Shosholoza Meyl - to 1.7million passengers a week on Metrorail which is used by urban dwellers to commute to work daily.
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