BOKSBURG, South Africa: At least 17 people, including three children, died in a slum near Johannesburg from a leak of toxic gas apparently used for scavenging gold at an abandoned mine, rescue services said on Thursday.
Emergency teams received a call at around 8 pm on Wednesday about a blast in the slum of Angelo, near the middle-class suburb of Boksburg. They discovered a "leakage from a cylinder" containing a poisonous gas, emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said.
The leak is believed to have come from a cylinder of nitrate oxide, used in illegal mining activity in and around the settlement, he said.
Authorities gave a toll of around two dozen deaths on Wednesday night before revising it downward to 16.
Panyaza Lesufi, the premier of Gauteng province, said at the disaster site on Thursday that a 17th person had died after being taken to hospital. "There are five others that were later admitted this morning. There is one under oxygen... Those in the hospital, the total number is 11," he told reporters.
First responders found scores of people "lying all over the area, due to inhalation of this toxic gas", Ntladi said.
Rescue workers and forensic police combed through the affected area — a cluster of squalid shacks built out of bricks and corrugated iron sheets — late into the night, journalists saw.
"I thought initially it was just an explosion in one area but... people were running away from the scene and then they started to fall -- they trying to get to areas were they can escape," Lesufi said.
Relatives of victims gathered in search of news. "This morning when I woke to come here and check exactly what had happened, I found out that my sister is in hospital, she's been admitted, but my brother-in-law passed away," said Felsin Nyamuso.
Johannesburg, South Africa's commercial capital, is built around mountainous dumps of soil and cavernous pits left behind by generations of mining companies that first extracted gold in the 1880s.
Obsolete mines across South Africa attract scavengers known as "zama zamas" — a word in Zulu which means "those who try their luck."
The work is often arduous and dangerous, but for many is the sole option in a country where a third of the workforce is unemployed.
Boksburg was last month struck by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake, suspected to have been linked to the maze of underground tunnels and shafts associated with illegal mining in the area. — AFP
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