The yellow dust that blows off it stings the throat. Studies have found it contains traces of toxic substances such as arsenic, lead and uranium -- a legacy of the 1880s gold rush that founded Johannesburg and Soweto.
The local Snake Park Cerebral Palsy Forum has since 2017 documented at least 15 cases of children born with the condition. Many more have deformations and disabilities, it said.
Okuhle, 13, has cerebral palsy and was abandoned in the street as a baby. Sitting in a wheelchair next to her foster mother on a recent afternoon, the cheerful girl communicated with squeals.
"She can't walk, she can't speak ... she can't use her arms well," said Lilly Stebbe, 60, who also blames the mine for the child's asthma, eye and sinus problems.
- Toxic pollution -
Stebbe herself struggled with a constant cough and irritated eyes. The dust went everywhere, she said.
"When you breathe that dust, it can give you all kinds of cancer," said David van Wyk, lead researcher at the Bench Mark Foundation, a watchdog of local business practices.
"It can also mix your DNA codes and your children will be born with all kinds of deformities," he said. "We find lots of... physically challenged children in this community."
There are more than 6,000 abandoned mines across South Africa, according to the auditor-general. At least 2,322 are considered high-risk for the adjacent communities.
Van Wyk said between 15 and 20 million South Africans live near such toxic pollution. About 50,000 are in the small houses of Snake Park and more in shacks at the foot of the mine in an informal settlement called Mountain View.
Every month, Van Wyk carries out tests on the dump, a vast expanse of powdery soil with a reddish stream through it, as part of a joint study with the University of Johannesburg.
- 'Give us 10 years' -
The two-year study aims to measure and identify solids dissolved in the water. On this day, the testing device detected a concentration of 776 mgs of solids per litre. This made the water unfit for drinking, said Van Wyk.
More importantly, the water "contains uranium and strontium, which are both radioactive," he said. The NGO has detected "a whole range of very toxic substances" from copper to arsenic and lead in the stream, he said.
It flows into nearby maize fields and surrounding pastures. Residents say some goats were born three-legged.
Local company Pan African Resources said it bought the mine in 2022 after the previous owner was liquidated without rehabilitating the site.
The pollution had been seeping out of the tailings for at least 50 years, the company told AFP.
"Give us maximum 10 years, we'll remove it completely," said community relations manager Sonwabo Modimoeng.
"We know that this affects people," he told AFP, adding the company had told people not to approach the area. It has also installed warning signs.
But these measures were insufficient for Thokozile Mntambo, who leads Bambanani, an NGO advocating for the rehabilitation of the area.
"The dump needs to be taken off right now, not after 10 years," she said. "Every day, the dust contaminates people."
- Community support -
Baile Bantseke, 59, lives a few hundred metres (yards) from the dump with her grandson Mphoentle. The five-year-old has been diagnosed with autism, which Bantseke blames on the "mountain".
Multiple studies, including one published in 2024 in the journal Environmental Health, have established links between autism and exposure to environmental pollutants like heavy metals.
"I blame our government. If they were looking after us, we would not be having such issues," Bantseke said.
Families with disabled children receive a monthly grant of 2,310 rands ($130), barely enough to afford food, clothes and diapers. It does not cover transport to a hospital 15 kilometres away where the children should get treatment.
"We don't have wheelchairs, we don't have pickup trucks," said Kefilwe Sebogodi, who founded the Snake Park Cerebral Palsy Forum and is raising a disabled niece.
In the run-down community hall, she welcomed a dozen mothers, grandmothers and caregivers joining the forum's support group.
Their monthly meetings showed that "the children matter in this community", Sebogodi said. "We are still standing."
Toxic Thailand rivers pinned on Myanmar mines
Chiang Rai, Thailand (AFP) June 18, 2025 -
A sprawling new mine is gouged into the lush rolling hills of northeast Myanmar, where civil war has weakened the government's already feeble writ, and pollution levels are rising downstream in Thailand.
The complex is one of around a dozen extraction operations that have sprung up in Shan state since around 2022, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of conflict-wracked Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups.
A few kilometres away across the border, locals and officials in Thailand believe toxic waste is washing downstream from the mines into the Kok River, which flows through the kingdom's far north on its way to join the mighty Mekong.
Thai authorities say they have detected abnormally high arsenic levels in their waterways, which could pose a risk to aquatic life and people further up the food chain.
The price fisherman Sawat Kaewdam gets for his catch has fallen by almost half, he said, because locals fear contamination.
"They say, 'There's arsenic. I don't want to eat that fish,'" he told AFP.
Tests in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai by a government pollution agency found levels of the toxic element as high as 49 micrograms per litre (mcg/l) of river water -- nearly five times international drinking water standards.
Experts say that while the effects on human health would not be visible immediately, the fish-heavy local diet risks a cumulative impact over several years.
"We already know where the contamination is coming from," said fisherman Sawat.
"They should go fix it at the source."
- Five-fold rise -
Pianporn Deetes, campaign director of the International Rivers NGO, blames the arsenic levels on Shan state's unlicensed mines, which operate outside any regulation or control by the central government.
It is Thailand's "largest-ever case of transboundary pollution", she added.
The mines are believed to be run by Chinese companies with close links to the UWSA, whose members themselves have longstanding ties to China, speak Mandarin and use China's yuan currency.
It is unclear whether the mines are digging for gold, rare earths or a variety of minerals, and it is also difficult to gauge the size of an industry operating in a secretive grey zone.
But videos on Chinese social media suggest much of what is produced in Myanmar ends up being sold to Chinese buyers.
In a report last week citing Chinese customs data, think tank ISP-Myanmar said the country was the source of around two-thirds of China's rare earth imports by value.
The Asian giant had imported five times as much rare earths from Myanmar in the four years since the 2021 military coup than in the equivalent preceding period, it added.
Many modern mines use a system of tailing ponds to reuse leftover waste and water and stop it being released into rivers, said Tanapon Phenrat of Naresuan University's civil engineering department.
But "in Myanmar, they reportedly discharge it directly into natural waterways", he added, increasing the risk of contamination spreading into the food chain.
"What we need is for mines to treat their waste properly and stop discharging toxic substances into shared waterways."
AFP was unable to reach UWSA officials for comment.
- Chinese companies -
From its Myanmar headwaters, the 285-kilometre (177-mile) Kok River is a vital resource for thousands of people as it wends through Chiang Rai province on its way to feed the Mekong.
In Chiang Rai City, a tranquil place popular with tourists, environmentalists dressed as wart-afflicted fish dance in protest.
The Thai government has proposed building a dam to prevent contaminated water from entering the country, but campaigners say physical barriers alone cannot stop pollution.
Bangkok acknowledges that Myanmar's junta may be unable to stop Chinese companies operating mines in militia-controlled areas.
And Chonthicha Jangrew of Thailand's parliamentary foreign affairs committee met senior Beijing officials last month, urging them to supervise Chinese mining firms "in order to stop the impact on people downstream", she said.
The Chinese embassy in Bangkok posted on Facebook last week that it had instructed Chinese companies "to comply with the laws of the host country and to conduct their business in a legal and orderly fashion at all times."
The Myanmar junta did not respond to questions from AFP.
"The water isn't beyond saving yet," said Tanapon of Naresuan University.
"But this is a clear signal," he added. "We need to act now."
Related Links
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
