The community of Snake Park is living in a Pandemic due to the Tailing Dump

Daniel Mkhwanazi

Eczema is a skin pigmentation of either inflamed skin or irritation caused by bed bugs from contaminated soil. Polluted air is another factor that is attributed to this problem. 

Early one morning, my team of environmental activists went to visit one of the residents in Snake Park who was suffering from eczema. Thokozani Mlambo is a 32-year-old male who has been living with eczema since his family moved to Snake Park, this is the problem whose root cause is the tailing mine dump. The dust goes through his shack every day and he sometimes does not sleep at night because the dust in his blankets makes his body itch and irritation deprives him of enough sleep. “I wash my blankets every week but still the dust affects me and my skin itches badly.”

Thokozani continued by saying that even when he closed his shack, it still looked like they left the door open. Every morning when he wakes up, he must bath and put on the ointment, even at night he takes a bath before he goes to bed. The treatment he uses for bathing is very expensive in the shops and he doesn’t get time to go to Bharagwanath Hospital to fetch his treatment. This is because where he works, they don’t have leave days and they only rest on weekends.

This dust is not okay and it makes people sick, especially if you are a person who is allergic. You are mostly vulnerable to getting sick from the dust contamination. As an activist, I think the government and the mining company must come into our community and give all of us health screening because it’s obvious that Snake Park residents are living in a pandemic.