The World Got Diamonds. A Mining Town Got Buried in Sludge. – by John Eligon and Lynsey Chutel (New York Times – September 23, 2022)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Waste from a diamond mine in South Africa grew ever higher as the ownership changed from De Beers to a billionaire to a Dubai-based retailer. The mining town paid the price.

JAGERSFONTEIN, South Africa — The dirt wall holding in mucky waste from diamond mining grew over the years to resemble a wide, towering plateau. Suspended like a frozen tsunami over neat tracts of Monopoly-like homes in the rural South African mining town of Jagersfontein, the dam alarmed residents who feared it may collapse.

“We saw it long time, that one day this thing will burst,” said Memane Paulus, a machine operator at the dam for the past decade. The worst fears of residents came true this month when a section of the dam crumbled, sending a thunderous rush of gray sludge through the community that killed at least one person, destroyed 164 houses, and turned a six-mile stretch of neighborhoods and grassy fields into an ashen wasteland.

The Jagersfontein disaster has caused alarm in a nation where heaping dams of mining waste, known as tailings, are part of the landscape. Experts estimate that South Africa has hundreds of tailings dams, which mining watchdogs say is the legacy of an exploitative industry that extracts lucrative gems for jewelry stores abroad, while poor communities are saddled with toxic waste at home.

The townspeople in Jagersfontein, home to one of the world’s oldest diamond mines, had watched the wall of waste mount, looming over their homes and streets. But there was little they could do to stop it because it was big business.

For the rest of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/us/south-africa-diamond-mine-collapse.html