&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "14 illegal miners killed, scores injured at disused mine in South Africa")
Fourteen illegal miners have died at a disused mine in South Africa on Tuesday (Aug 11), with police saying a rockfall was the likely cause of the deaths. Confirming the deaths, police said in a statement that fourteen illegal miners had died at the disused mine. A police spokeswoman told news agency AFP that eight other miners had been seriously injured in the incident. The incident occurred near the town of Rustenburg, roughly 100 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. Officials were still en route to the site, and no details had yet emerged about the identities or nationalities of the miners involved, provincial police spokeswoman Colonel Adele Myburgh told AFP.
"It's not safe where they work in any way. So it's one of those situations where they had a rock fall. They go into discarded mine shafts ... it's so dilapidated, there's no infrastructure, there's no safety measures in place," Myburgh said, and as quoted by AFP.
Describing the conditions at such sites, Myburgh said the miners work in inherently unsafe environments prone to incidents like rockfalls. She noted that abandoned mine shafts typically lack infrastructure and safety measures, making them highly dangerous for those who enter them. Illegal mining, carried out by groups often referred to locally as "zama zamas," is a persistent problem in South Africa, where disused shafts left behind by defunct mining operations are frequently occupied by unauthorised prospectors searching for leftover gold and other minerals. Such operations are typically unregulated and lack safety oversight, making rockfalls, gas explosions, and structural collapses a recurring danger for those working underground.
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The illegal mining sector reportedly has been linked to organised criminal activity, including assassinations, extortion and other unlawful operations. Authorities have not provided further information on the exact cause of the rockfall, the condition of the injured miners, or plans for recovery operations at the site. Further details, including the identities of the deceased and the exact site of the incident, are expected to be released as the investigation continues.
