14 miners killed, several hurt in disused S.Africa mine

A rockfall at an illegal mine northwest of Johannesburg killed 14 miners, most of them from Lesotho, with several hurt and others possibly still stuck underground, police said Tuesday.

Thousands of unregistered miners known as "zama zamas" operate in South Africa, scavenging abandoned mines for gold and other minerals in arduous and often perilous conditions.

"Fourteen illegal miners, mostly Basothos, died during a rockfall," police spokeswoman Colonel Adele Myburgh said.

"Eight others were hospitalised and an unknown number of illegal miners are currently possibly stuck under the ground. Police are on the scene, and the scene is still active," she said in a statement.

Officials were at the site of the disaster at Nkaneng, near the town of Rustenburg nearly 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, an area of the North West province where there are several established platinum mines.

The incident was reported late Monday, Myburgh said.

Unregulated miners working in South Africa come from several countries across the region, driven by poverty and unemployment, and the sector has been linked to organised crime, assassinations, extortion and other illegal activities.

"It's not safe where they work in any way. So it's one of those situations where they had a rockfall," Myburgh told AFP.

"They go into discarded mine shafts ... it's so dilapidated, there's no infrastructure, there's no safety measures in place," she said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa in February announced the deployment of the army to help police fight illegal mining, with the activity contributing to major infrastructure damage in some areas.

Reacting to the incident, the South African Federation of Trade Unions said it had repeatedly warned that the country had allowed its "thousands of abandoned, derelict and inadequately secured mines to become death traps, environmental hazards and breeding grounds for organised criminal syndicates".

There were around 6,000 derelict and ownerless mines and abandoned mining sites in South Africa, it said in a statement.

"The Nkaneng tragedy once again demonstrates the terrible human price of failing to confront the crisis comprehensively," it said.

The area where the rockfall occurred was owned by Sibanye, a global mining and metals processing group, police said.

Around 90 clandestine miners lost their lives nearly two years ago when police blocked a disused gold mine near the town of Stilfontein, west of Johannesburg, for weeks from August 2024 in a bid to drive out the illegal workers.

Nearly 2,000 miners resurfaced in the weeks-long operation, many illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries including Lesotho and Mozambique.

Police said on July 31 they had arrested 24 undocumented foreign nationals in the Stilfontein area in an operation against suspected illegal gold mining.