On the morning of 11 September 2022, the tailings dam at Jagersfontein collapsed, releasing between five and six million cubic metres of mining slurry into the surrounding area. Two people were killed, one person was never found, about 200 homes were damaged, and roughly 1 600 hectares of agricultural land were contaminated. Residents received no official warning.

In November last year, the department of water and sanitation delivered a scathing report against Jagersfontein Developments (Pty) Ltd for severe negligence leading up to the devastating dam wall collapse. The report was officially handed over to Free State premier MaQueen Letsoha-Mathae by DWS deputy ministers David Mahlobo and Sello Seitlholo.

Mahlobo revealed the mine constructed two new structures in 2019 on top of an older dam wall originally built by De Beers during its operations at the mine.

In a policy review, UFS professor Lochner Marais said the conditions leading to the catastrophe were decades in the making.

The Jagersfontein mine closed in 1971 but reopened in 2010 to reprocess historical mine waste. Over time, ownership transfers, technological changes, evolving operational practices and fragmented oversight created a governance environment in which risk steadily accumulated.

“Satellite imagery identified progressive wall movement and deformation around the tailings facility as early as 2019. That information was available to the mining company and the department of water and sanitation. It was never communicated to the community.”

Failure and disaster 

“The official investigation report referred to the term ‘failure’ more than 400 times. The word ‘disaster’ appeared only four times. To the researchers, that distinction matters. It reveals how disasters are often framed as engineering events rather than broader social and governance failures.”

Marais said the first lesson of the policy brief is that tailings storage facility disasters emerge from long-term governance problems, rather than technical malfunctions alone.

While engineering weaknesses played a significant role in the Jagersfontein collapse, it unfolded in a context marked by regulatory gaps, ownership changes, inadequate oversight and limited accountability.

“Technical explanations, the researchers argue, tell only part of the story.” He said the second lesson is that detecting danger is not the same as reducing risk.

“The second lesson follows naturally. Detecting danger is not the same as reducing risk. Warning signs existed. Regulatory reports identified concerns. Miners raised questions. Community members noticed changes. Yet the institutions responsible for acting on that information failed to connect monitoring systems with communication systems and emergency planning.”

Effective early warning systems must combine risk knowledge, monitoring, communication and response capacity. At Jagersfontein, these functions remained fragmented, with information staying within technical and regulatory processes rather than reaching the people whose lives depended on it, he said.

The third lesson highlights the importance of community participation. Residents and mine workers noticed warning signs and voiced concerns before the disaster, but these concerns did not translate into preventative action.

The fourth lesson draws on what researchers call ‘disaster scenes’, detailed reconstructions of events based on survivor testimony. Marais argued that residents effectively became their own first responders in Jagersfontein.

Economic hardship

“The brief argues that future emergency planning should incorporate this lived experience instead of relying solely on technical assessments and institutional procedures. Perhaps the most sobering lesson concerns recovery. 

“Four years after the collapse, many households continue to live with unresolved losses. While some reconstruction has occurred, residents report unfinished repairs, lost assets, economic hardship, and reduced spending on essential needs such as food and healthcare.”

The final lesson is that disasters must be documented and continuously reflected upon. Official investigations often focus on technical causes and legal compliance, yet they can miss the experiences of affected communities and the institutional weaknesses that allow risks to escalate, he added.

Prof Deanna Kemp from the University of Queensland stated that “Documenting every disaster supports learning and risk reduction.”

Marais said the significance of the policy brief stretches far beyond a single Free State town. The researchers argue the lessons from Jagersfontein should inform disaster risk reduction, mine governance, environmental regulation and recovery planning across the country.

Among their recommendations are stronger lifecycle regulation of tailings facilities, better integration of monitoring data into public early warning systems, greater transparency in risk information, meaningful community participation in disaster planning, and independent oversight of compensation and recovery programmes.

OFM News dg

• Have a news tip to share? Phone or whatsapp the OFM News Hotline: 066 487 1427.