Disaster looms as zama zamas undermine Gauteng’s foundations

The saying about the “bottom dropping out of your world” is a horrifying possibility for residents of Johannesburg and other towns in Gauteng on the once fabulous reef of gold which made this area of South Africa famous.

The province was left with an estimated 16 000km of tunnels and shafts from more than 120 years of intensive gold mining, which means there are myriad voids below our very feet where there used to be rock.

Now, packs of illegal zama zama miners are creating even more havoc below the surface by digging and blasting out even more ore as they help unscrupulous syndicates profit from the gold they recover.

It is so bad that the zama zamas are close to causing a major disaster on a major road or highway because of a sinkhole or collapse.

One group had to be pulled off from trying to dig out rock which was part of the foundations of a bridge.

ALSO READ: Stilfontein mines sealed, but not everyone is happy with the decision

Close to the N12 highway in Ekurhuleni, zama zama underground entrance holes are not far from the edge of the carriageway and rock is being removed from as close as two metres from the surface.

All of this illegal activity is happening in plain sight – such that a major artery like Main Reef Road has partly disappeared under zama settlements and gold mine workings.

In one instance we recorded, the illegal miners are using a large, diesel-power excavator.

How is it, we ask, that the police are either not aware of this or, if they are, are doing nothing about it?

Apart from sporadic, “sound bite” raids on some workings – which quickly resume operations – the zama zamas are being allowed to run riot.

ALSO READ: Illegal mining: More than R30m spent on police operations at Stilfontein

Do we have to wait for a bus full of school kids to be swallowed by a sinkhole before action is taken?