Titus Muvhali, 58 years old

Daily Maverick finds Titus Muvhali, a tall man with a broad smile, sitting under his mango tree. He says he started working at Tshikondeni mine as a coal cutter in 1993.

Although the work was fine, he says, there was a lot of dust that came with it and at the time there were no dust masks. He says miners had only gumboots, plastic gloves, a helmet and goggles.

Dust masks were only introduced in 1996. He says he remembers this because it happened after an accident involving a coal-cutting machine that killed 10 people.

Muvhali says he would go for medical check-ups every year, but the doctor he was seeing at the time didn’t tell him anything was wrong. When a new doctor started working at the mine, however, he told Muvhali that he saw “something black” in his chest X-rays, but Muvhali’s boss just told him to get back to work.

Muvhali worked at the mine until it closed in 2014. The following year, he started feeling really unwell, with a burning sensation in his chest, weakness and night sweats.

He says he has used up his pension money. Getting medical treatment is difficult because he lives far from the hospital, and a return trip by taxi costs R140, which he does not have. Muvhali says he is now living on the R350 Social Relief of Distress grant. Whenever he feels strong enough, he cuts people’s grass for R150 to R200.

“If I were to meet the mine owners I would fight them because they knew that I’m sick and did not compensate me. Maybe, if I knew earlier, something could have been done,” he says. “My life is on the edge now, but even if I die during the class action at least my wife can be compensated. I would like God to help me to get compensated before I die so I can uplift my family.”

Asked if he would let his child work on a mine, he says: “I would warn him about safety and tell him about my experience and disease, but I can’t stop him from working in order to survive.

“Most people who live around here used to work on the mine.”