At least one person has been killed and several injured after a mine dam collapsed in Jagersfontein, central South Africa.
The accident caused flooding.
A river of mud and water flowed from the disused diamond mine into a residential area.
“Houses and cars” were swept away, Palesa Chubisi, spokesman for Free State Province Prime Minister Sisi Ntombela, said in a statement on Sunday.
#ICYMI Minister @DlaminiZuma activates National Disaster Management Center #NDMC to support Jagersfontein communities affected by the mining dam that burst its banks https://t.co/iLkjsL1ry6
Video: TSF Risk Solutions https://t.co/nnNDbsivZH pic. twitter.com/g2JWBX0nCY
— NationalCoGTA 🇿🇦 (@NationalCoGTA) September 12, 2022
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Balance sheet uncertain
Local authorities first said three bodies had been found, but then revised that figure down to one person killed.
South Africa's Minister of Minerals and Energy Resources, Gwede Mantashe, told him up to five people could be dead, four people were missing and four others were in critical condition.
“Nine houses were swept away and 20 others were destroyed.
It's a disaster,” he added in an online press conference.
Earlier, Palesa Chubisi said that forty people, including a pregnant woman, had been evacuated to local hospitals.
No more electricity or drinking water
Search and rescue operations were continuing on Sunday, authorities said, with evacuations to nearby farms.
"Reports received so far indicate that the flow of water has ceased" and that there is no longer an "immediate threat", said in a press release the Minister in charge of Disaster Management, Nkosazana. Dlamini-Zuma.
For its part, a humanitarian aid organization, including staff, was on the scene assured that "thousands of liters of mud" poured out of the dam.
“Houses, personal belongings and many sheep were washed away.
There is no more electricity and not a drop of drinking water.
Some roads have been cut,” the South African NGO Gift of the Givers wrote on Facebook.
According to the national electricity company Eskom, Jagersfontein is without electricity because one of its secondary power stations has been "engulfed in mud".
Once owned by diamond mining giant De Beers, the mine was acquired in 2010 by the Superkolong consortium, according to the government, which described it as now "abandoned".
The cause of the dam collapse is not yet known.
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World
South Africa
Accident
Disaster
Mine