Sections of Wemmer Pan Road have simply vanished, swallowed by voids carved through underground blasting. Cracks spider across the asphalt. Sinkholes open without warning. These are not abstract problems. They are the visible face of illegal mining operations burrowing beneath Johannesburg day and night, destabilizing the city’s transport networks, electrical infrastructure, water systems, and the buildings where residents live.
The scale of the operational challenge is substantial. More than 34,000 irregular miners, known locally as zama zamas, work the abandoned shafts and newly dug tunnels honeycombing beneath the city. They operate continuously, extracting gold and other minerals while simultaneously compromising the ground stability that underpins the urban landscape above.
City Power, the utility responsible for Johannesburg’s electricity network, has documented the infrastructure consequences directly. Spokesman Isaac Mangena stated that underground excavations have compromised ground stability, placing substations, transformers, pylons and transmission towers at risk. In some areas, infrastructure has already begun to sink as illegal mining activity continues to expand beneath the surface.
The operational reality extends well beyond electrical systems. Miners steal electricity cables, damage water pipes and dig up roads. A businessman operating a factory in Denver, near central Johannesburg, showed evidence of a gaping hole approximately 100 metres from his facility entrance, where he said large numbers of illegal miners emerge each week. Cracks in his premises, he explained, resulted from underground blasting beneath his property. He requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
Michael Sun, a member of the provincial legislature in Gauteng, which encompasses Johannesburg, framed the delivery problem plainly: residents suffer the consequences while the operations continue unabated.
The round-the-clock mining introduces additional complications. Gang competition over mining territories has generated shootouts in residential areas. Voneen Trompeter, a 45-year-old resident in Roodepoort northwest of central Johannesburg, described the progression from tremors that shook her flat to active gunfire in her neighborhood. “It is scary,” she said.
Mining expert David van Wyk offered a blunt assessment of the trajectory ahead. Things are still going to get worse in terms of infrastructure damage, he said. The problem stems partly from the city’s geological legacy. Johannesburg, reportedly Africa’s richest city, was born from a gold rush in the 1880s. Hundreds of abandoned shafts line the main gold reef. While some are being reworked by zama zamas, many are filled with acidic water that contributes to sinkholes. Van Wyk warned that people living in informal settlements built on mine waste dumps are falling ill and more houses will crack and fall into sinkholes.
By contrast, the operational takeover of communities is nearly complete in some areas. In a mining village outside Carletonville, approximately 74 kilometres west of Johannesburg, zama zamas have occupied an abandoned school and barred anyone else from entering. Local councillor Moiketsi Ntilane, 44, described the area as chaotic since the miners arrived. “They are the authority,” he said. “Families live in fear. They are ruthless, gun-toting and happy to kill.”
The miners themselves are predominantly impoverished men from neighboring countries who can spend days underground. One 27-year-old from Lesotho told AFP he could earn up to 15,000 rand (more than $900) on a good day and more than 100,000 rand monthly. “I have been here for four years, and this job feeds my family,” he said.
In Bapong village, North West province, approximately 65 kilometres northeast of Johannesburg, the infrastructure damage is equally stark. Several homes stand dangerously close to massive pits excavated by miners seeking chrome deposits. Resident Sarah Rakgwanhla, 63, noted that while regular police and military patrols now keep zama zamas at bay, the community lives with the damage already done. “The holes are dangerous because they have water, and our children pass by them every day on their way to school and to the shops,” she said. “We need help to have these holes sealed.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa deployed troops across Gauteng province in March to bolster police operations against crime and illegal mining, yet the operational challenge persists across the region. Whether those deployments translate into sealed shafts, repaired roads and restored infrastructure, or simply displace the problem to the next abandoned reef, remains the question communities from Roodepoort to Bapong are still waiting to have answered.