In September 2020 the department of water and sanitation flagged risks around a tailings dam wall at the Jagersfontein Mine about 100km southwest of Bloemfontein. On Sunday, two years later, the wall collapsed, taking at least one life — probably more — and injuring at least 40 people who had to be taken to hospital. Houses, vehicles and livestock were swept away in the sludge. Scores of people were left homeless. Two elderly people were still missing on Monday evening. The town was plunged into darkness as Eskom’s access to the electrical substation in the area was cut off by the mudslide.
TimesLIVE reported at the weekend that Jagersfontein Developments received a directive two years ago informing it of failure to comply with sections of the National Water Act in reference to “the entitlement to use water at the diamond tailings recovery operations in Jagersfontein ... specifically, failure to comply with conditions relating to the volumes of waste water disposed”.
“In the notice issued to Jagersfontein Developments on September 29 2020 ... this department has made a finding that Jagersfontein Developments had exceeded the volumes authorised for disposal on the fine tailings storage facility in contravention of the licence condition ... In your responding letter you also confirmed that the licence volumes were indeed exceeded by the operations,” the department stated.
The dam at the abandoned diamond mine — home of two of the 10 biggest diamonds ever discovered — was simply too full. The company was instructed in 2020 to cease operations until it complied. Marius de Villiers, speaking on behalf of Jagersfontein Developments, insisted at the weekend the company had complied with the directive at the time. He said the cause of Sunday’s collapse was under investigation. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Stargems Group, a Dubai-based company that owns Jagersfontein Developments, said when it acquired shares in the tailings dump due diligence had been done, showing the dam was “safe and secure”. The mine was originally owned by De Beers and shut in the 1970s. Stargems bought the shares from billionaire Johann Rupert’s Reinet Investments in April. Jagersfontein Developments is reported to have pledged R20m to assist the community affected by the collapse.
Water governance specialist Carin Bosman told TimesLIVE there are several regulatory requirements mine tailings dams need to adhere to in terms of design, construction, operation and monitoring. “If these requirements are followed, mine tailings dams will not fail. Mines are supposed to conduct annual audits to evaluate if they meet the requirements and must have a water management plan in place as well as a water monitoring system and an emergency plan. If this mine had these measures in place, the dam would not have failed,” she said.
While the cause is still under investigation, it is hard to believe the collapse could not have been foreseen, especially considering the red flags raised two years ago. Now families are in mourning and many are homeless in a town covered in mine waste, with power lines cut off. Jagersfontein Developments need to come clean on what went wrong while the department needs to establish liability and look at its own monitoring processes to see if there is room for improvement. If there has been any contraventions by the company, its directors and owners should be held accountable.
