Illegal mining is tearing apart the infrastructure of South Africa’s economic hub, with underground blasting causing roads to collapse, sinkholes to open and buildings to crack across the city, residents and officials say.
Sections of Wemmer Pan Road have caved in from tunnels dug beneath it, while round-the-clock digging for gold and other minerals is straining transport routes, the power grid and homes citywide. Voneen Trompeter, 45, said the tremors from underground blasting used to shake her flat in Roodepoort, but the area has since escalated to gang shootouts.
A 63-year-old businessman near central Johannesburg’s Denver area showed a gaping hole roughly 100 metres from his factory entrance, out of which he said large numbers of illegal miners emerge each week, and pointed to cracks in his premises from the blasting below. Officials say the illicit operations, often tied to competition between criminal gangs, are also fueling a rise in violent crime in affected neighborhoods.
City Power, Johannesburg’s electricity utility, said underground excavation had compromised ground stability, putting substations, transformers, pylons and transmission towers at risk, with infrastructure already beginning to sink in some areas as the activity expands.
Engineering experts have warned the damage extends beyond roads. A University of Johannesburg mining engineering professor said in July that water infiltration through damaged pipes was accelerating sinkhole formation in a compounding cycle, threatening water mains, sewer lines and fuel and gas pipelines, and has called for the city to build an integrated digital mapping system to flag underground risks before new developments are approved.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has deployed troops to affected areas, and soldiers have periodically raided and dismantled illegal mining camps, including operations broken up in Randfontein in March, though the practice — carried out by miners known locally as “zama zamas” — has continued largely unabated. Local officials have called for stronger enforcement, including greater use of force against organized mining gangs.
