Gold Fields big SAfrica mine still shut after deaths

JOHANNESBURG, June 22 (Reuters) - Africa's biggest gold mine owned by Gold Fields (GFIJ.J), remained shut on Monday after two people were killed when rocks fell on them in an underground shaft over the weekend following a tremor.

South Africa, which has the world's deepest gold mines, has a dire safety record, and the fatalities have led to the temporary closure of mines by authorities, denting output.

"We are busy with investigations and the entire mine remains closed. It's too early to say how soon the mine will resume production," Willie Jacobsz, a spokesman for Gold Fields, the world's fourth-biggest gold producer, said.

The company's Driefontein mine has several shafts and produced 928,000 ounces of gold in the firm's 2008 fiscal year.

The workers died following an earth tremor on Saturday.

Driefontein was hit by a tremor on the previous weekend, leading to the death of two miners.

Last year 168 miners died in South African mines. About 80 workers have died in mines so far this year. (Reporting by James Macharia; editing by James Jukwey)