Than in all of WW1? Far more than South Africa's WW1 dead is true enough: a rough calculation suggests around 75,000 recorded gold-mine deaths since 1886 - still nearly 1% of all WW1 military deaths which is horrific enough, and ten times South Africa's battle dead. The official returns seem to have been accepted by critics of the minority regime and the mining interests, but omit lives shortened by injury or respiratory disease as well as others blighted by afflictions such as hearing loss, and of course exclude other mining sectors.