Abstract
Treatment of old mine shafts can be a tedious and costly process if not carefully planned and managed. This paper presents the work conducted with the aim of evaluating the risk of abandoned mine s...
Highlights
Mine entries are common features of abandoned mine sites where mineral exploitation made use of underground mining methods
The inventory of abandoned shafts compiled through the review of literature about the studied abandoned mine sites and carryout the shaft’s preliminary field assessment allowed that their environmental and physical hazards are identified and quantified
In general, abandoned mines with dangerous shafts in the Giyani and Musina areas are situated near communities; it is important that their treatment is considered urgent and be done in a more effective manner
Summary
Mine entries are common features of abandoned mine sites where mineral exploitation made use of underground mining methods. They are generally characterized by risks of accidentally falling into old mine workings. The dangerous nature of abandoned mine shafts and other entries appear to be obvious, in South Africa and other developing countries with large number of abandoned mine sites, fatalities and nature of accidents occurring in these shafts are not known with certainty. According to illegal gold miners ( known as Zama-Zamas) who go underground through old shafts in the Witwatersrand Basin, at least every week one person dies in abandoned mine shafts in South Africa (Sieff, 2016). Under reporting of accidents and fatalities occurring in abandoned mine sites was explained by Skinner and Beckett (1994) because of no existence of formal reporting channels of such accidents in many countries or regions
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