South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized economy, has produced more gold than any other country. The gold rush of the late 1800s formed the bedrock for massive cities like Johannesburg, creating an industry that at its height employed more than a half-million people. But these days, the nation’s large-scale gold mining sector is a shadow of its former self and most of those jobs have been lost, leaving many miners and their families destitute.
Meanwhile, the country’s more than 6,000 abandoned mines have encouraged an illegal gold mining industry, a dangerous undertaking that’s attracted both individuals and criminal gangs. Making matters worse is the way in which South Africa has sought to crack down on the practice, saying it’s depriving the government of $3.4 billion in annual tax revenue. As Bloomberg Investigates reveals, these circumstances combined to help trigger a catastrophe in the small town of Stilfontein, where more than 100 miners died after being trapped underground for months.