South Africa’s chrome riches fuel a deadly underground economy

Rustenburg, South Africa – On August 13, a wall of soil collapsed and killed 14 miners, most of whom were believed to be undocumented migrants, at a disused mining site near Nkaneng, an informal settlement outside Rustenburg in South Africa’s mineral-rich North West province.

“It happened in a flash, and the earth swallowed a dozen,” Lerothodi Nale*, a migrant from Lesotho who e...