With a melodic sounding name the Riemland is largely an area of wide flat horizons interspersed with not much else. It is however home to some very interesting heritage hotspots in the country. The Riemland covers most of the north and north-eastern Free State, including the towns of Sasolburg, Heilbron, Petrus Steyn, Lindley, Arlington and Senekal.
In days gone by large herds of game roamed the area. Hunters came to shoot the game and made thongs or riempies from the hides. These riempies were a necessity to most farmers and were mostly used as rope. The Riemland therefore is the area from where the riempies came.
Accompanied by tour guides Twin Mosia and Piet Lombard, History and Heritage Tourism students of the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, visited some of the heritage sites in the Riemland area from 30 September to 3 October.
The Coalbrook tragedy
One of the largely forgotten heritage sites of the Riemland is the place where the Coalbrook mining disaster took place in 1960. The bodies of the 435 miners who died there on 21 January, after a large underground cave in, were never found. This is the biggest mining disaster in South African history and ranks under the ten biggest coal mining disasters in the world.
This occurred about 180 m below the surface in the area north east of the No. 2 Shaft of the Clydesdale Colliery. About 1 000 miners were underground at the time of which 435 became trapped. Rescue operations started immediately but were...
