Zama zamas close to causing disaster

The saying about the "bottom dropping out of your world" is a horrifying possibility for residents of Johannesburg and other towns in Gauteng on the once fabulous reef of gold which made this area of South Africa famous.

- 

The province was left with an estimated 16 000km of tunnels and shafts from more than 120 years of intensive gold mining, which means there are myriad voids below our very feet where there used to be rock.

Now, packs of illegal zama zama miners are creating even more havoc below the surface by digging and blasting out even more ore as they help unscrupulous syndicates profit from the gold they recover.