South African diamond mining company files for bankruptcy after five miners killed in flood.

South African mining company Ekapa Minerals has filed for liquidation following the death of five miners at its Ekapa Joint Shaft Mine at Kimberly in Northern Cape Province, South Africa, on 17 February 2026. The miners have been missing presumed dead since a slurry of water and mud rapidly filled the section of the mine where they were working. The area where the incident occurred was located 890 m below ground, and had only recently been opened up, and life support systems had been installed, but the sudden nature of the flood has led the mine operators to conclude that the incident was not survivable, and, following several days of attempts to reach and clear the site, that there is little hope of recovering the bodies of the lost miners.

A mine rescue team entering the Ekapa Joint Shaft Mine site this week. SABC News.

Floods and inrushes typically occur when miners accidentally break through into pockets of water and gas trapped within rocks. Since such buried waters are often under high pressure due to the weight of rocks above them, they tend to escape into the mine rapidly, and on occasion explosively, leading to a highly dangerous situation in which miners are often rapidly overwhelmed. Such inrushes can also occur when miners encounter flooded disused mineworkings, a danger in areas where mining has occurred for a long time but good records have not been kept. The Ekapa mine had a history of flood inrush events, and the company had been warned by a parliamentary committee in 2025 that steps needed to be taken to avoid future events of this kind.

The Ekapa Joint Shaft Mine site. SABC News.

The closure of the mine is predicted to result in the loss of about 1200 jobs, a crisis for the city of Kimberly, which has a population of just under 97 000 people, and is already suffering from high unemployment rates due to the decline of the diamond industry. Furthermore, workers from the site report that they have not received their salaries for the month of February 2026, placing many of the in a very difficult situation financially. 

Ekapa Minerals purchased the Joint Shaft Mine from mining giant De Beers in 2016, and at the time of closure it was the last surviving diamond mine in Kimberly. In theory, the site could be sold on to another mining company following the liquidation process, but it is unclear if a buyer will be found given the mine's problems and a fluctuating diamond market.

The location of Kimberley in Northern Cape Province, South Africa. Google Maps.

Kimberly was founded in the 1870s following the discovery of diamonds in the area, and rapidly became a centre of wealth in the Cape Colony, opening South Africa's first stock exchange in 1881, and becoming the second city in the world to install electric street lighting the following year. However, in recent years the city's mines have closed one-by-one as the industry has become less viable. The long history of mining in the area means that there are no diamonds left close to the surface, and while they can still be found at greater depths, these are generally fairly small, making it hard for these mines to compete with either shallow, open pit mines elsewhere, or artificial lab-grown diamonds.

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Two new species of Oxalis from Northern Cape Province, South Africa.

Plants of the genus Oxalis are found in South America, where there are around 250 species of herbs, shrubs and vines, and Southern Africa, where there are around 210 species, all of which are bulbous perennials, and most found within the Cape Floristic Province. Classification of the South African species has proved difficult, as many species are highly variable, making identification difficult. Recent application of genetic barcoding to the group suggests that South African members of the group can be split into three clades (a clade is a group of organisms with a shared common ancestor; all members of the clade must descend from that ancestor and everything shown to be descended from that ancestor must be included in the clade). One of these, the Oxalis pes-caprae clade, apparently containing the majority of species found outside the Cape Floristic Province, in Northern Cape Province and Namibia.

In a paper published in the journal Blumea on 17 November 2014, Francois Roets of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University, Kenneth Oberlander of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University and the Institute of Botany at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Leanne Dreyer of the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, describe two new species of Oxalis from Northern Cape Province, both of which are placed in the Oxalis pes-caprae clade.

The first new species is named Oxalis hirsutibulba, meaning ‘hairy-bulbed’ in reference to the dense hairs on the bulbs and rhizomes of this species. This is a bright green plant reaching 20 cm tall covered by dense, fine hairs, and growing in rocky environments. Bulbs reach 6 cm in length and are and shallowly buried, rhizomes reach 20 cm. Three to fourteen trifoliate leaves are produced, and one to seven tube shaped white flowers with yellow interiors.

Flowers of Oxalis hirsutibulba. Roets et al. (2014).

Oxalis hirsutibulba was found growing at three locations in the Richtersveld Conservancy UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was collected from two south facing slopes by Roets et al., one with desert vegetation and one with succulent Karoo vegetation. Some previously collected herbarium specimens were also found to belong to the species; these were identified as having come from Helskloof Pass near Kubas, but the exact location of their origin is unknown.

Typical habitat of Oxalis hirsutibulba in the Richtersveld Conservancy. Roets et al. (2014).

The second new species is named Oxalis fenestrata, meaning ‘having windows’, which is not explained but which probably refers to the translucent white markings just below the apical incision of the leaflets. This species has thick, succulent stems reaching 40 cm tall, and is a bright apple green colour. The bulbs reach 7.5 cm long and are buried up to 30 cm deep, the rhizome is white and reaches 25 cm. Leaves are trifoliate and found in groups of three to five. One to six flowers are produced, each having yellow funnel-shaped tube surrounded by five white petals.

(b) Whole plant of Oxalis fenestrata. (d) Detail of leaves. Roets et al. (2014).

Oxalis fenestrata was found growing on granite boulder-dominated hillsides in the southern part of the Richtersveld Conservancy; only two populations were found, separated by a distance of 1.3 km, suggesting the species has a limited geographical range. All the planets were found growing in gravel, in the shade of large boulders or Fig trees. Neither population comprised more than 50 individuals.

Typical habitat of Oxalis fenestrata in the Richtersveld Conservancy. Roets et al. (2014).

See also…

A new species of Dorstenia from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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The impact of an invasive native shrub on semi-arid cattle rangelands in Zimbabwe.

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The cause of Pink Spot Disease on Guavas in South Africa.

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Scavenging on the body of a Dicynodont Therapsid in the Late Permian of the Karoo Basin.

Therapsids were a group of Synapsid Amniotes (the group of terrestrial vertebrates that include the modern Mammals which are sometimes, misleadingly, known as ‘Mammal-like Reptiles), that reached great diversity in terrestrial ecosystems throughout Pangea (the ancient supercontinent of the time, which included all the modern continents joined together) in the Permian and Triassic, before being  largely replaced by more successful Archosaur groups, notably the Dinosaurs and Crocodylomprphs. The group is particularly well known from the Karoo Basin of South Africa.

In a paper published in the South African Journal of Science on 29 October 2012, Nicholas Fordyce of the Department of Zoology at the University of Cape Town, Roger Smith of the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town and Anusuya Chinsamy, also of the Department of Zoology at the University of Cape Town, describe evidence of scavenging on the body of a Dicynodont Therapsid (a group of herbivorous Theraspids which often reached large sizes that had both beaks and tusks, and which may have survived as late as the Cretaceous) from mudrocks of the Tropidostoma Assemblage Zone of the Late Permian Beaufort Group, near Loxton in Northern Cape Province by John Nyaphuli in 1984, and prepared at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town by Annelise Crean. It has never been formally described and named, but is affectionately known as ‘Mamafura’.

The partially articulated Dicynodont ‘Mamafura’; the arrow indicates the left femur. Fordyce et al. (2012).

The skeleton of ‘Mamafura’ has articulated foreparts, but the hindquarters are more-or-less totally disarticulated. The bones show a level of weathering that is consistent with about two years spent exposed on the surface prior to complete burial. Sedimentary evidence suggests they originally lay on a semi-arid floodplain, and underwent three or four flood events before being finally buried, during which time some of the smaller bones of the animals feet were lost, either to water transportation or scavenging.

The left tibia of ‘Mamafura’ has two elongate grooves, which are thought to be the result of the actions of a scavenging or predatory animal. There is also a single circular indentation, 18 mm in diameter, on the left femur. 

(b and c) A large spherical puncture on the left femur, and (d) tooth scratch marks on the left tibia of ‘Mamafura’. Fordyce et al. (2012).

A broken canine tooth, 3.5 cm in length, was found with the skeleton. This has distinctive serrations on its lateral margins. Two Therapsid groups present in the fauna of the Karoo basin at the time of ‘Mamafura’ could produce a canine tooth of this size, the Therocephalians and Gorgonopsians, but no known Therocephalian has the sort of serrations seen on the tooth, suggesting that it came from a Gorgonopsian, probably Aelurognathus or possibly Cyonosaurus.

(a) The unidentified canine associated with the Dicynodont skeleton and (b) its serrations. (c) A Cyonosaurus specimen and (d) the 0.2-mm long serrations on the canine of Cyonosaurus and (e) an Aelurognathus specimen. (f) A silicon cast showing details of the serrations on a canine of Aelurognathus. Note the square serrations of (b) and (f) compared to the somewhat more rectangular serrations in (d). Fordyce et al. (2012).

Fordyce et al. suggest that soon after death ‘Mamafura’ was scavenged by a pack of Aelurognathus, acting in a similar way to modern Canids (Dogs). These preferentially attacked the rear and underbelly of the corpse, disarticulating the bones of the hindquarters, but not opening the ribs. Neither Aelurognathus nor Cyonosaurus appears to have been well adapted for durophagy (crushing bones or other hard foods), so it is doubtful that capable of making the marks found on the bones of the left hindlimb of ‘Mamafura’. Fordyce et al. suggest that these marks were either made by some other, unidentified, predator, possibly the animal responsible for the initial kill, or are the result of some other taphonomic process (post-mortem bone modification) that resembles tooth damage.

See also….

 A Caseid Synapsid from the Late Pennsylvanian of Kansas.









 Strange bedfellows in an Early Triassic burrow from the Karoo.

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