Ekapa mine tragedy | All five bodies recovered

Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, will visit this mine for the third time since the incident on Monday. (Photo: Northern Cape Provincial Government/X)

The remains of the last two miners who have been underground for more than a month at the Ekapa mine in Kimberley were recovered on Monday morning.

This brings the death toll to five after a mudslide on 17 February, in a tunnel about 890 m underground.

It is understood that the families of the miners concerned have already been notified.

The first body was recovered on Monday last week and the remains of two more miners were brought out of the mine on Sunday morning.

Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, will visit this mine for the third time since the incident on Monday.

Minister Gwede Mantashe has arrived at Ekapa Minerals following the discovery of mine workers who lost their lives in a mud rush incident pic.twitter.com/pQB9lij5Wg

— Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources ‏ (@DMPR_ZA) March 23, 2026

Maroela Media previously reported that the Ekapa mine was also quietly liquidated in the Kimberley High Court on February 25, while the bodies of the trapped miners were still being searched underground.

All operations at the diamond mine were halted in terms of the liquidation process with immediate effect, meaning that hundreds of miners were suddenly out of a job. An application for liquidation was submitted after the mine’s management apparently reviewed the mine’s financial statements and came to the conclusion that it was no longer financially sustainable to continue as a mining and processing business.