A house overlooks an open pit dug by illegal miners searching for chrome in Bapong, a mining village in North West province, on August 25, 2026. In Bapong, a mining village in North West province, several homes are now surrounded by massive pits dug by illegal miners using excavators.
Whole chunks of a once-busy road in Johannesburg have collapsed because of damage caused by the illegal mining rampant across South 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, and we would feel our flat shake," 45-year-old Voneen Trompeter said in Roodepoort, northwest of central Johannesburg.
