ENGULFED

Shortly after midnight - a small village in the South African hinterland. Disaster!

Straddling the border between the Northern Cape and the Free State provinces are to be found rich diamond fields. The first discovery of diamonds near Kimberley spawned a massive diamond extraction industry and over the next few decades mines dotted the surrounding areas. Dug by hand and with machinery imported from the industrial giants in Europe, the world’s largest hole was excavated and tons of diamonds were hauled to the surface to adorn the ring fingers of women the world over. Dripping with jewellery, the wealthy flaunted their fortunes as they strutted the lofty chambers of high society.

South Africa was home base to the world’s largest corporate conglomerate that wielded immense power in the international diamond trade. The mining operations were not conducted by that company alone, but over a century other operators entered the industry and made their own fortunes in a market ruled by the dynamics of supply and demand. Driven by profit, it was the captains of the industry, the boards of directors and the shareholders in these public companies that reaped the benefits of masses of toiling mineworkers. Driven by the compelling quest for profit, the powerful men wielded their authority and called the operational shots with respect to mining company policies. Workers’ wages, extraction, processing, cutting and polishing were subject to cost cutting to maximise profit. Inevitably corners were cut with regard to safe by-product and waste management. In the field of diamond mining, toxic waste finds its way into tailings dams with earthen embankments to contain the liquids, solids or a slurry of fine particles. 

Internationally, there are some 3500 tailings dams doing the job outlined. While the mines continue to be profitable and remain functional, the companies cover their backs by monitoring the stability of these tailings dams to prevent them failing and causing slurry slide disasters. The sword of Damocles that hovers above the mine bosses is the threat of lawsuits, class action suits and criminal prosecution that function as motivation to do a competent job. However, when these mines are no longer profitable, the companies either sell the problem by disposing of the land for alternative use, or they simply close the mine, erect a makeshift fence around the dangerous parts of the land, and then direct their attention to more profitable pursuits elsewhere. Should there be a dam failure or any injury on the site, a phalanx of lawyers stands ready to line their pockets by tying litigants in red tape that can stretch for decades. The problem is that tailings dams are meant to be permanent – forever and a day. By the time lawsuits are ready to nail the responsible party for the man made disaster, the perpetrator is long gone (usually mouldering in a grave somewhere). The sad reality is that these dams fail at a rate of 35 a year world-wide (about five being major failures resulting in death). Governments the world over are astoundingly lax and recalcitrant in legislating for the safety of surrounding communities.

The disaster that befell the little border town was reminiscent of a similar deluge of slurry at a coal mine in Aberfan, Wales, which occurred on 21 October 1966. In many respects the Merthyr Vale Colliery had demonstrated contemptuous disregard for the lives and safety of the villagers in Aberfan, and had wilfully ignored the warnings given by competent soil engineers regarding the instability of the spoil tip. In similar vein to the South African disaster decades later, heavy rain preceded the sudden mudslide occasioned by the seven tips that overlaid a natural spring being inundated by an incessant downpour. At the start of morning classes, the Pantglas Junior School was inundated with toxic slurry when the earthen retaining wall suddenly failed. There were 144 deaths (116 of whom were children) as they were asphyxiated in a muddy death trap. Politicians arrived with platitudes (assuring the townsfolk that they were in their thoughts and prayers). For them photo opportunities abounded that showed them as caring and compassionate. The Queen arrived several days later in a belated demonstration of concern for the expendable working classes of the Welsh collieries. To the credit of the government, an inquiry was subsequently held in which liability was found to reside with the company and nine of its officials. In an egregious dereliction of duty, the state institutions prosecuted not a single organisation nor any responsible employee. The only consequences suffered were by the people of Aberfan as their tears soaked into the soil near a memorial erected in honour of their friends and relatives who were obliterated in the few minutes it took for the toxic soil to squeeze the life out of their bodies.

The South African border town was, too, engulfed in an instant, after a deluge had compromised the earthen embankment. In this instance the mining company had abandoned its dreadful tailings dam years prior to the incident that robbed many of the prime of their lives. One company had sold it to another and corporate South Africa played “pass the toxic parcel” as it were, and the link with the original firm grew ever more tenuous. 

Asleep in their beds and ensconced between sheets and duvets, were unsuspecting working class families. The erstwhile South African miners who had uncovered precious stones that created untold wealth and a crop of billionaires, were blissfully unaware of the disaster about to befall them. Unusually heavy rainfall had blighted the area for days, much like at Aberfan in 1966. Sleeping soundly in Johannesburg, too, the captains of industry gave not a smidgeon of a thought to the danger they had left in the wake of their profiteering, cost-cutting and profound disregard for health and safety as executive oversight in an industry fraught with danger. 

A few minutes before midnight on that fateful day, the tailings dam embankment was breached, first with a trickle of overflowing toxic waste. The fissure instantaneously began to expand until, in mere moments, the earthen wall was torn asunder. The slurry lost no time in cascading down the hillside and into the little village. Almost twenty houses were engulfed in mine waste, mud and murky water. Windows, roofs and walls were no match for the mighty force of doom. Some poor folks were still sound asleep when their lives were snuffed out. Others had woken to the eery rumble of rapidly descending rocks and slurry. No escape! Death had befallen them in one fell swoop of the Grim Reaper.

The next day, as in Aberfan, a parade of politicians with platitudes. Some took a cheap shot at their opponents by prematurely apportioning blame – usually mistakenly. Others promised action, justice and handed out political placebos – t-shirts, cheapie blankets and some morsels of food. The army donated some surplus tents. And yes – the obligatory Judicial Inquiry – was announced with great fanfare. Even the President was flown in by helicopter, a limo on site to take him to the scene of the disaster. He rambled on about his shock and dismay – delivering a speech that cemented his image as one who is as inspiring as an undertaker on Valium. 

Out of all the hot air spouted by politicians, the captains of industry, civil servants and the Commission of Inquiry, not a single prosecution. No liability directly ascribed to any company, manager or engineer. To blame – the usual suspects – topography, climate, geology and the nature of tailings. The metals in the tailings were also hauled before the court of public perception: toxic metals, arsenic, mercury, acid drainage. The victims: wildlife dependent on clear water, inundated rivers, grazing land – and, oh yes, as an afterthought, the poor folk who had lost their lives in the deluge.

The little village was engulfed, not only in slurry, but information black holes, lawyers safeguarding companies even remotely liable for damages claims, and a blame game cynically bandied about with the  ultimate purpose of exonerating those whose dereliction of duty had engulfed the village.

Of a certainty, given the greed, self-interest, indifference and moral ineptitude, this will not be the last man-made disaster to engulf innocent, ordinary, folk.

©Paul M Haupt