It is estimated that more than R30-billion is needed to rehabilitate South Africa’s 5906 decommissioned or abandoned mines – many of which kill and injure scores of people every year.
In a report to Parliament, the auditor-general says that 1730 of the abandoned mines – the owners of which often cannot be traced – are a “high risk” to nearby residents. At some of the mines, there are shafts and dumps in which fires have burned for decades and sinkholes up to 30m deep. Dangerous chemicals from some workings seep into the ground water.
The AG’s report is a performance audit on the rehabilitation of abandoned mines by the department. The AG’s report, tabled in Parliament in October, slams the department for being too slow in the rehabilitation of abandoned mines, despite the serious dangers they pose to the public and the environment.
Some of the findings include:
• Many abandoned mines – from which poisonous gases and lethal acids continuously seep – are in densely populated areas and “pose a huge health risk to a large section of the South African public”.
• There are burning coal, combustion gases, and acid mine-drainage.
• These dangerous locations are surrounded by informal settlements with people walking past the mine on their way to work.
• Children are swimming in pools of water that has seeped out of the mines and contains hazardous chemicals, including acids and metals.
• Rivers of red-stained water from the mines flow into streams from other rivers.
It is alarming to find that in the past three years, the department has rehabilitated only five of the 5906 abandoned mines, at a cost of about R42-million. The department is believed to be focused on rehabilitating asbestos mines.
Risk factors identified in the report on abandoned mines are:
• Air pollution by dust;
• Gases from burning coal mines and dumps;
• Contamination of ground and surface water with acid, salts and metals used in mining; and
• Hazards posed by mines with open shafts and unstable slopes.
[The findings from this report was revealed in Times Live]
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