DESPITE a marginal decline in the number of fatalities on South African mines, the poor safety performance of the industry continues to cast a shadow over the sector.
The Minerals Council South Africa said at the Mining Indaba conference on Tuesday that fatal injuries dropped to 41 last year from 42 in 2024. So far this year, there have been three fatalities in the industry with two in the gold sector and one in a PGM mine.
There was, however, a more substantial improvement in serious injuries which decreased to 1,693 last year from over 3,000 in 2015.
This resulted in a 12% drop in the serious injury frequency rate to just over two injuries per million hours worked between 2024 and 2025 – indicative of lower fatal injuries, the Minerals Council said. The 10-year trend is also good: in 2017, 88 fatalities were reported.
Despite the headline numbers, there are some concerning trends. The number of fatal injuries at South African gold mines increased sharply from 11 in 2024 to 21 in 2025.
Fatalities from fall-of-ground events increased a quarter, rising from 12 in 2024 to 15 in 2025. Dushen Naidoo, the Council’s Head of Safety, said the increase was due to six fatal accidents caused by seismic events underground compared with none in 2024.
The industry has done successful work on fall of ground prevention, but seismic events are more difficult to predict and mitigate.
In a positive development, PGM mines, which historically accounted for the largest share of fatalities, saw a marked drop from 19 to 11, while coal mining reported only two fatalities.
Last year’s fatalities were unacceptable to the industry, said Japie Fullard, chair of the Minerals Council CEO Zero Harm Forum. “As mining CEOs, we believe that Zero Harm is possible. If you consider the significant reduction in fatalities, injuries and illnesses in the sector over the past three decades you will understand why we hold this belief,” he said.
The Council says that the mining industry has reduced fatalities in three decades by 91% to 41 in 2025 from 484 in 1994. Serious injuries have fallen by 80% to 1,693 from 8,347 in that period, with specific sector focus on leading causes of fatalities like falls of ground as well as transportation and mining contributing to the reduction.
The Council said its member companies have stepped in to fund some of the community services in mining towns that were negatively affected by the withdrawal of US AID funding. US funds accounted for 17% of funding for HIV services in mining-impacted communities.
