Johannesburg (AFP) — A rockfall at an illegal mine northwest of Johannesburg killed 14 clandestine miners, most of them from Lesotho, with several hurt and others possibly still stuck underground, police said Tuesday.

Thousands of unregistered miners known as “zama zamas” operate in South Africa, scavenging abandoned mines for gold and other minerals in arduous and often perilous conditions.

“Fourteen illegal miners, mostly Basothos, died during a rockfall,” police spokesperson Colonel Adele Myburgh said.

“Eight others were hospitalized and an unknown number of illegal miners are currently possibly stuck under the ground. Police are on the scene, and the scene is still active,” she said in a statement.

Officials were headed to the site of the disaster at Nkaneng, near the town of Rustenburg nearly 100 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg, an area of the North West province where there are several established platinum mines.

The incident was reported late Monday, Myburgh said.

Illegal miners working in South Africa come from several countries across the region, driven by poverty and unemployment, and the sector has been linked to organized crime, assassinations, extortion and other illegal activities.

“It’s not safe where they work in any way. So it’s one of those situations where they had a rockfall,” Myburgh told AFP.

“They go into discarded mine shafts... it’s so dilapidated, there’s no infrastructure, there’s no safety measures in place,” she said.

Most of the thousands of illegal miners operate in abandoned gold shafts in the Gauteng province that includes Johannesburg.

President Cyril Ramaphosa in February announced the deployment of the army to help police to fight illegal mining, with the activity contributing to major infrastructure damage in some areas.

Around 90 clandestine miners lost their lives nearly two years ago when police blocked a disused gold mine near the town of Stilfontein, west of Johannesburg, for weeks from August 2024 in a bid to drive out the illegal workers.

Nearly 2,000 miners resurfaced in the weeks-long operation, many illegal immigrants from neighboring countries including Lesotho and Mozambique.

Police said on 31 July they had arrested 24 undocumented foreign nationals in the Stilfontein area in an operation against suspected illegal gold mining.