The SA Government inherited the City of Johannesburg back in 1994 and has taken them just 32 years to ruin the city beyond repair. This is the end result of what having no law and order gets you.
I have mentioned this numerous times before that the buildings, roads, bridges and everything on the surface is at risk of collapse due to illegal mining. A Professor from the university of Johannesburg has now raised concerns saying he believes there is roughly 100 years of mining gold left below the city.
The one big problem was this gold was left behind for a good reason and that mine companies in the late 1990's had to mine according to the infrastructure above the ground. Every mine shaft had to be assessed not by how much gold was lying around this but what buildings lay above and there were pillars of gold rich soil left behind for this very reason.
Bridge supports are even being mined and this is above ground so one can guess how bad this is undergeound.
The tell tale signs are there today with sink holes appearing out of nowhere as illegal mining is going as far as the underneath tar on the road. There are certain no go areas not because of crime but because the entire area is not safe due to possible collapse. There are areas in a suburb of Boksburg that has their main road closed for over 5 years now due to areas having collapsed.
The biggest worry is that the illegal mining syndicates would be working from old mining plans which were the same plans used by the municipalities whether they allowed buildings to be built due to the map highlighting what was below. These criminal syndicates only care about the gold and the worry is they will be targeting these vital pillars of supporting ground lying beneath the surface. This is more than a worry as the reality is this is what is happening. These are not engineers working according to plans calculating the load bearing soil required to support buildings and infrastructure above the ground but unemployed workers mining wherever the gold might be.
The 100 year gold left behind by the various mining companies was intentional and working closely with structural engineers allowed them to work hand in hand with the municipalities. This is why the mines were abandoned and shut down because there was so little gold left that they could safely mine it was not worth further investment. There are also many mines that were abandoned prior to any legislation and these have also been mapped so in the early 2000's everyone knew what was below ground.
Now in 2020 no one is sure what the stare of the below land shaft network looks like and we can all guess things have changed dramatically. Illegal mining is a crime and instead of worrying about the gold the government should be more concerned about the entire infrastructure of Johannesburg because one can imagine how bad things are going to be in ten years time. The entire City of Johannesburg will be one big no go zone due to safety with buildings, bridges and roads not supported according to how one would expect.
The sinkholes and damaged drainage system are early warning signs that there is an impending disaster looming and this could already be too late to reverse if stopped immediately. The sad thing is greed ,ignorance, corruption and no law and order are to blame for this mess so this will continue until things are too late.
Sinkholes appearing below the bypass in Johannesburg. This cannot be repaired just by filling in concrete and all you need is the support beams to give way.
There are a few roads I am worried about already and avoid Johannesburg like the plague. There is a double freeway that is stacked on top of each other or bypass and one can imagine driving on this knowing what is happening underground. The weight of this road bypass cannot have any of it's supports removed or their is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
