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People watch as Senzo Mchunu, South African police minister (not pictured), inspects outside the mineshaft where it is estimated that hundreds of illegal miners are believed to be hiding ...
Zama zamas are illegal artisanal miners in South Africa who occupy closed or operational mines to mine for minerals such as gold, iron ore, coal, and manganese. The term zama zama loosely translates to "take a chance" in isiZulu and they use rudimentary tools and explosives for mining.
South Africa's government says it will let thousands of illegal miners starve until they accept their fate and emerge from an abandoned shaft to face arrest. South Africa is trying to starve 4,000 ...
STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) -Desperate relatives of possibly hundreds of illegal miners stuck underground in a disused mine shaft in South Africa waited outside the site on Friday in the ...
The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners ...
Mnguni said that the more than 500 miners still underground were in different places in the mine, which is one of the deepest in South Africa at 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) deep and has multiple shafts, many levels and is a maze of tunnels, he said.
Illegal gold miners, commonly referred to as "zama zamas", operate in abandoned mine shafts and use the empty gas cylinders, known as "phendukas", to process the stolen ore. The cylinders, often stolen, are first drained of gas, then cut open so that ore can be placed in them along with a steel ball which crushes the ore as the cylinder is rotated.
At least 31 people are suspected to have died in a methane gas explosion at a disused gold mine in South Africa around the third week of May in 2023. [3] [2] [4] [5] [6]The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) reported late on 22 June 2023 that the miners had died in a mining shaft at the abandoned Virginia mine in Welkom, Free State.