MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Greek ATP tennis player tests positive after leaving Melbourne Airport | MyJHB.co.za

Johannesburg in the news:

  1. Greek ATP tennis player tests positive after leaving Melbourne Airport: A member of the Greek ATP Cup team who played in Melbourne earlier this month has tested positive to COVID-19 in South Africa. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  2. Limpopo floods claim lives of residents between 8 & 73 years: Authorities said the deceased were swept away by bursting rivers and streams due to tropical storm Eloise that hit Mozambique last month. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  3. Teacher unions still worried about school readiness: Unions have also raised issues of counselling, as there are teachers who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  4. EC Nehawu calls for Gomba’s removal: Sindiswa Gomba and 11 others face charges relating to corruption, money laundering, fraud and contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  5. Boxing mourns Bro Mzi, ‘the first to produce a world champ in Mdantsane’: The mecca of SA boxing, Mdantsane, is today mourning the death of world-renowned promoter, trainer and manager Mzimasi ‘Bro Mzi’ ‘Mnguni. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews

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Have you tried: Travelling to South Africa?

Did you know this about Johannesburg? The Shaft of Terror, located at the popular amusement park of Gold Reef City, is a vertical-drop roller coaster that has the distinction of being the tallest and fastest roller coaster in Africa. It has a 47-metre drop, and a G force of over 6 Gs!

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Top Star Drive-In: Destroyed by What Created it

However, the very thing that created the Top Star eventually destroyed it. Because the early miners had used crude methods, the Ferreira Dump—and dozens of others like it—still contained significant traces of gold. As the price of gold rose and new chemical extraction technologies (like the carbon-in-pulp process) made it profitable to “mine the waste,” the ground beneath the Top Star became more valuable than the cinema itself. In 2006, despite fierce opposition from heritage groups who argued that the dump and the drive-in were culturally significant landmarks, the projectors were turned off for the last time.

The reclamation of the dump was a staggering industrial feat. Starting in 2008, mining giant DRDGold used high-pressure water cannons to “monitor” the dump, turning 5 million tons of solid earth back into a liquid slurry. This slurry was then piped 40 kilometers across the province to a processing plant in Brakpan. By 2011, the “mountain” had completely vanished. The 50-meter-high plateau that had dominated the southern skyline for a century was reduced to a flat, dusty crater.

The disappearance of the Top Star is a poignant symbol of Johannesburg’s “extractive” nature. It is a city that consumes itself to stay alive; even its historical landmarks are subject to the fluctuating price of minerals on the London and New York stock exchanges. Today, if you drive along the M2, there is an empty space in the sky where the Top Star used to be. While the reclamation removed a source of toxic dust and “acid mine drainage,” it also erased a piece of the city’s collective memory. The land where the gold-flecked mountain once stood is now being rehabilitated for light industrial use, proving that in eGoli, even the horizon is for sale if there’s enough gold hidden inside it.