South Africa’s September 11 tragedy has morphed into a full-scale legal battle after 26 families issued summons to a prominent mining company and two cabinet ministers. This follows the Jagersfontein disaster that claimed three lives, destroyed homes, and left scores of Charlesville residents in Free State homeless nearly three years ago.
The tailings dam collapse unleashed a tidal wave of toxic sludge that thundered down the slopes; swallowing homes, cars, livestock and everything else in its path.
Families scrambled for their lives as the grey sludge wiped out decades of memories and livelihoods.
Tired of waiting for justice, the 26 families – alongside the Kopanong Local Municipality, which also suffered massive and irrecoverable infrastructure damage – have now launched a legal fight against Jagersfontein Developments, the ministers of water and sanitation, and mineral resources and energy.
Legal battle ensues
The legal battle is spearheaded by Nkome Incorporated Attorneys, the same law firm that stood by the families of the Marikana massacre victims in their historic fight against the state.
Confirming the lawsuit to Sunday World, Nkome Incorporated representative Ruvesh Govender said the summons was issued through the Bloemfontein High Court. The defendants have 20 days to respond or face the possibility of a default judgment.
“After several communications in an attempt to settle this matter, our offices have received instructions from our clients to issue summons against the defendants,”
said Govender.
“In our claim, our clients seek [compensation] for property lost and damaged, for household items and belongings that were lost and damaged, for injuries and loss of support for dependents whose parents passed on, for loss of earnings and for the
municipal infrastructure, which was damaged during the tragic incident.”
Massive destruction
Govender said the scale of destruction was massive and far-reaching. “Other losses include damage to vehicles, livestock, household contents such as furniture, sewer lines, electricity lines, [and] telecommunications lines. The water in the area was also contaminated,” Govender said.
The disaster in the early hours of September 11, 2022, is now regarded as one of the worst mining-related environmental catastrophes in democratic South Africa. At the centre of the tragedy was a towering tailings dam built precariously on a slope, above the densely populated black communities of Charlesville and Itumeleng, a stone’s throw away from the historic Jagersfontein pit.
A forensic report by the Bench Marks Foundation slammed the mine operators and regulators, warning that the dam was built on unstable wetland soil, directly on top of a shallow aquifer, making its collapse inevitable. The report stated bluntly, “It was not a matter of if the tailings would break but when.”
Residents had for years raised alarm over the steep, overloaded walls of the dam that loomed over their homes.
Early warning not heeded
Former mine workers told investigators they had warned supervisors the night before the disaster, only to be told to continue working.
When the dam burst, a 792-metre-wide wall of toxic sludge swept across the R704 regional road, obliterating everything in its path. Homes were flattened to their foundations. The local power substation was washed away. Sewage systems collapsed. Entire farms were drowned, with one farmer losing 90% of his sheep.
Even the Proses River, 15 kilometres downstream, was left choked by sludge. Locals reported watching fish leap out of the muddy water, gasping for air, only to suffocate on the banks.
Survivors have since been living with the aftermath of contaminated water, destroyed livelihoods and a landscape that still bears the scars of the grey tsunami that struck that morning.
As part of the summons, the victims are demanding that the defendants be held liable for their collective failure to prevent the disaster. The lawsuit aims to test whether South Africa will uphold the “polluter pays principle” or once again shift the cost of disaster onto the shoulders of taxpayers.
The court battle now looms large, not just over the mining company and government, but over the entire debate about how South Africa treats poor, mine-adjacent communities left to live in the shadow of profit-driven destruction.
