Illegal mining ravages S.Africa's economic hub

The City Gold Built Is Being Hollowed Out From Below

Johannesburg was born from a gold rush in 1886 and grew into the richest city in Africa on the strength of what lay beneath it. Nearly a century and a half later, that same underground geology has become the city's most dangerous liability. Across Gauteng and the wider gold reef, illegal miners known as zama zamas, Zulu for " those who try" are descending into abandoned shafts by the thousand, and the infrastructure above them is starting to giv…

Illegal mining ravages S.Africa's economic hub

Elsewhere along Wemmer Pan Road are cracks and sinkholes from underground blasting by irregular miners digging under the city for gold and other minerals. The round-the-clock operations are undermining Johannesburg's infrastructure -- from transport and power networks to homes and buildings -- and introducing crime linked to competition between gangs, residents and officials say. "At first it was the blasting and the tremors from underground, a…