AT THE start of a 4am shift, gold miners scan their fingerprints and squeeze into tiny “mantrap” turnstiles, designed to prevent thieves from slipping through. Then they pile into cages and descend nearly three kilometres (2 miles) underground at Sibanye Gold’s Driefontein mine. A warren of increasingly narrow tunnels leads to the reef, where miners blast a rock face rich with gold. It is gruelling work. Deep in the bedrock, the air feels as hot and humid as a tropical jungle.
Most of the world’s deepest (and historically richest) gold mines are clustered some 70km (40 miles) south-west of Johannesburg. The deeper they go, the more expensive and difficult the work of extracting the ore. Most mines are mature (Driefontein is 65 years old), and the cost of extracting the gold may soon exceed its value. Illegal miners known as “zama-zamas” (“taking chances”) are another problem, undeterred by the extreme depths and high-tech security. At Sibanye’s nearby...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2tdMHlp
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