Workers strike at another So. Africa mine

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Workers began a strike at a South African gold mine a day after employees returned to work at a platinum mine where 46 people had been killed, an official said.

The strike started Thursday night at the Kopanang mine owned by Johannesburg-based AngloGold Ashanti, the BBC reported Friday.

"The night shift embarked on an unprotected strike and the morning shift did not go down [into the mines] either," a company spokesman said.

The strikers at the Kopanang mine, which employs 5,000 people, want their pay to more than double, a demand similar to that of striking workers at the Marikana mine, where 34 strikers were killed by police gunfire Aug. 16,10 other people, including two police officers died before the mass shooting and two have died since, the BBC reported.

The Marikana strikers settled for pay raises of 11 to 22 percent.

A government inquiry into the Marikana deaths will begin on October 1.