Mine blast is cracking houses in block (11) Snake Park

Nobulaw Sitshaluza

Mines use explosives to blast apart solid rocks or ore into smaller fragments for processing.
Mine blasting causes ground air vibrations shockwaves, these shockwaves have significant
impacts on our community members of Snakepark block eleven. The Snakepark community
of block 9 is traumatized because of the mine blasting creating cracks everywhere in their
homes.

We conducted a community study on the lived experience of people with Cerebral palsy and
other disabilities in block eleven for 2 days. On 11-12 November as we were conducting a
study we discovered that the mine tailing does not impact the block eleven community as
much as other blocks. They do "admit that though if it is dusty at times they do experience
the mine tailing dust. Their main problem was that their homes may collapse and fall on top
because of all the cracks they have because of the mine blasting. They that" mine blasting
happens at night as well and when it does they wake up in fear that maybe this is the last
day after this blast they will either die or no longer have a home. They even mentioned that
at this point they feel helpless as well because their block eleven community is so much that
the will be no place that can accommodate all of them.

Our government or the mine owners I am not even certain that they know what kind of hell
they are putting that community through daily. The most common reactions that our
government we receive as community members is when someone is injured or the families
have lost a loved one. That is when it will take forever through a court system for families to
get any form of justice or some sort of compensation from the guilty party.
When it’s windy, the cracking gets worse and the heavy rains, the cracking grows, and that’s
where community health gets affected. Engineers who work for a particular mine are the
ones that conduct these mine blasting.