Carlos Tayima watched football at the community sports center in Angelo Tivani, a settlement of about 200 people just outside Johannesburg. He got a call from a friend. About a kilometer (0.62 miles) away, in the shack the Mozambican national has called home since moving to the community in 2007, his daughter died in a gas leak from a neighboring shack.
“When we got the call, I immediately rushed to my house. We first wanted to close a gas cylinder, but the smell was too strong. We could not get inside the shack,” Tayima, an electrician, told Al Jazeera. When they eventually got in, he and other community members started checking for those who were still alive. They also laid out those who were dead next to each other.
“I lost six people who lived with me,” Tayima, 49, told Al Jazeera. “My sister and her two kids, then my wife and I lost our daughter and a couple who rented the back room." According to officials and witness testimony, the shack was the site of a makeshift mine built by a group of zama-zamas. These are illegal miners who scavenge abandoned mines across Southern Africa.
It sat between three other shacks where families lived. During the mine’s operation last week, a gas cylinder was accidentally opened, and it spread nitrogen to neighboring shacks.
In all, 17 people, including three children, died within a 100-meter (328-foot) radius. Of the 10 people hospitalized, four are children, including a two-month-old, who officials said is now in stable condition.
The Institute of Security Studies estimates that at least 30,000 illegal miners work in and around thousands of disused and active mines across South Africa. This costs the country 21 billion rands ($1.1 million) annually in lost sales, taxes, and royalties. Some of these miners are financed by criminal gangs that also engage in arms trafficking and money laundering.
Gas leaks are common. On May 18, 31 illegal miners died from a methane explosion in Free State province, but this was not discovered until more than a month later. The miners were migrants from Lesotho, whose government reported the incident to South African authorities.
The latest accident happened on Wednesday in an informal settlement along the Witwatersrand Gold Reef, where gold was discovered in 1886. When informal settlements like Angelo sprout on Johannesburg’s outskirts, they are often next to or over a mine.
Emergency Management Services (EMS) spokesperson William Tladi reported finding an empty gas cylinder used “to extrapolate gold from the soil”. Initially, EMS officials counted 24 dead with no one hospitalized, but a recount later confirmed the death toll as 17. Authorities are yet to confirm if the miners were among the dead or their whereabouts, but South African police are investigating the incident.
Gauteng Province Premier Panyaza Lesufi visited the scene Wednesday night. He called for a special crime unit to respond “as if we are in a warzone” against criminal gangs that engage in illegal mining. Sivuyile Ngodwana, mayor of Ekurhuleni municipality, pledged his support to the families of the deceased and victims of the gas leak. He appealed to residents to report illegal mining in their communities.
The site of the operation
In a statement on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for an investigation “to get to the bottom of what may have caused” the gas leak. He also expressed condolences for the “tragic loss of innocent lives”.
“We are planning to focus on that [illegal mining] and address it quite prominently,” Ramaphosa told the media on Sunday. Before officials arrived at the site, locals like Alcido helped “pull out piles of bodies” from the illegal mine and neighboring shacks. The 39-year-old street hawker was drinking at a tavern in the settlement that night when a woman holding a baby burst in, coughing and choking after inhaling toxic gas.
Alcido told Al Jazeera that he ran with his drinking buddies to the makeshift mine. They found a family of five dead but helped rescue a woman and her child, who are still in the hospital. “It was hard getting those people out of there. We took them out not knowing if they were alive,” Alcido said.
Syfred Manaka, another Angelo resident, also rushed to the scene to join rescueefforts. He received a call from friends about people dying in his area.
“We used wet towels on our faces when we entered the shack," the 40-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Since the gas leak, shacks around the mine have mostly been deserted while neighbors are in the hospital or mourning their loved ones.
Some residents are still shocked. One of them, Atalia Manyisa, was sick on Wednesday. She found out two days later about the incident and that her partner, Daniel Zandamel, was among the dead, she told Al Jazeera. Tayima cannot afford a shock now. “I don’t feel well,” said the electrician, who has since returned to work. “It’s painful.”
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