![]() #DiamondRush in #Ladysmith, KwaHlathi /ZotkILw4z1- D i m b a n e June 13, 2021Ī video posted on Twitter June 13 shows hundreds of people digging tirelessly for pieces of stone.Īfter the discovery went viral on social media on June 13, the government of KwaZulu-Natal, the province in which KwaHlathi is located, called for order, proclaiming that the excavations amounted to “illegal mining”. ![]() People are even sleeping there now, which shows how hungry and desperate they are. They wait for someone to dig out the soil and they start searching, because the stones are so tiny. The field is an open space, but it’s not big enough to accommodate all these people, they are crowded in the few open holes. ![]() You’d be surprised if you knew this place, because usually we only see a car every 15 minutes, but now there’s a lot of traffic. There are now people from all over, from different provinces. The rumours escalated into a national frenzy: While the existence of diamonds in the region has not been ruled out, some experts surmise that it is more likely quartz, a similarly transparent crystal that is far less valuable than diamond. They expect conclusive results before mid-July. In the case that they’re real, we want to have more of them, as much as possible.Ī team of geologists from the government has collected samples in order to determine whether the material is diamond or not. They’re still digging because the results are not out yet – they’re still testing whether they are real diamonds or not. ![]() Every person from my family has gone there. You have to dig for about a metre and you can find the precious stones, they’re very small. We used digging equipment, shovels, pickaxes, and we found a lot of them. The provincial government has since requested all those involved to leave the site to allow authorities to conduct a proper inspection, amid fears the people digging at the site could potentially be spreading coronavirus.Large Dimond reserves found by locals at kwahlathi was madness /KB43dmjN1J- Dashing-Dee June 11, 2021Ī video posted on Twitter June 11 shows crowds of people, equipped with pickaxes and shovels, searching for diamonds in KwaHlathi. ![]() Some people have started selling the stones, with the starting price ranging from 100 rand ($9.41) to 300 rand ($28). The coronavirus pandemic has made it worse. South Africa's economy has long suffered from extremely high levels of unemployment, trapping millions in poverty and contributing to stark inequalities that persist nearly three decades after the end of apartheid in 1994. Long lines of parked cars on both sides of the gravel road could be seen just a few metres from an open field, where crowds dug through the soil with picks, shovels and forks to find riches. The lack of an analysis of the stones has not deterred fortune seekers. The mines department said on Monday it was sending a team of geological and mining experts to the site to collect samples and conduct an analysis.Ī formal technical report will be issued in due course, the department said. The unidentified stones have attracted fortune seekers to the village after pictures and videos were shared on social media. ![]()
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