At least 14 miners dead after disused mine collapse near Rustenburg, South Africa

Mine collapse near Rustenburg

At least 14 artisanal miners were found dead and eight others seriously injured after a disused mine collapsed near the city of Rustenburg in South Africa's North West province, police said on Tuesday, 11 August. The site is located in Nkaneng, roughly 100 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. A police spokesperson told AFP that the miners were victims of a rockslide at an unsafe worksite with no infrastructure or safety measures. Emergency services were still en route to the scene, according to German outlet n-tv. Several people were believed to remain trapped underground, though the exact number was not confirmed by police.

The accident occurred on the evening of 10 August, according to the Daily Maverick, cited by Dutch broadcaster NOS. South African outlet News24 reported that the mine walls collapsed while a group of miners was working illegally underground. The SABC, South Africa's public broadcaster, said the cause of death was not yet clear. Police had not released information on the nationalities of the victims.

The zama zama economy

South Africa has tens of thousands of unregistered miners, known as zama zamas, a Zulu term meaning "those who try." Driven by poverty and unemployment, they descend into shafts abandoned by commercial mining companies to extract leftover gold, platinum, and other minerals. Rustenburg is a hub for platinum mining in South Africa, which holds the largest platinum reserves in the world. The informal operations often lack proper safety equipment, and accidents are frequent.

The sector is linked to organised crime, contract killings, extortion, and other illegal activities. Some miners operate under the control of violent criminal gangs. Illegal mining costs the government and mining industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost sales, taxes, and royalties, Reuters reported. Many of the miners come from other countries in southern Africa.

Stilfontein precedent

The Rustenburg collapse follows a series of incidents in the same North West province. On 31 July 2026, a police operation targeting illegal miners in Stilfontein, about 200 kilometres from Rustenburg, resulted in the arrest of 24 undocumented foreign nationals and the discovery of a truck carrying an excavator.

Stilfontein was previously the site of a months-long standoff between police and illegal miners that began in late 2024. Police surrounded the abandoned gold mine and restricted food and water supplies to force miners to surface; those who emerged were arrested. At least 87 people died, according to NOS, while Portuguese and French sources put the toll at 90 or more between late 2024 and early 2025.

Police on the scene

A senior provincial police official was travelling to the scene, Reuters reported. The police spokesperson described the conditions that led to the deaths.

“The place where they were working is really unsafe. They were victims of a rockslide. They enter abandoned mine shafts. It is so dilapidated, there is no infrastructure, no safety measures in place.”

No information on the nationalities of the victims was immediately available. Police did not say how many miners remained underground or whether rescue operations had begun.