Machete-wielding strikers forced top world platinum producer Anglo American Platinum to shut down some of its South African operations yesterday, widening the labour unrest sweeping through the country’s mining industry.

A column of 1,500 chanting marchers confronted a small group of riot police backed by armoured vehicles at the gates of the firm’s Bathopele shaft in the “platinum belt” near Rustenburg, 100 kilometres, northwest of Johannesburg.

The protesters jeered workers inside the plant, a repeat of action taken on Monday at rival Lonmin’s neighbouring Marikana mine, where police shot dead 34 striking miners on August 16.

“All of us, we’re going to close all the operations, starting from Rustenburg. We’ll go even to the gold mines to stop the operations,” marcher Evans Ramokga said.

The platinum price jumped three per cent to $1,654.49 an ounce, its highest since early April, as investors feared more disruption to supplies of the precious metal used in jewellery and vehicle catalytic converters.

South Africa is home to 80 per cent of known reserves of platinum, the price of which has gained nearly 20 per cent since the Marikana shootings, the bloodiest security incident since the end of apartheid in 1994.

The rand also dropped as much as 2.5 per cent against the dollar.

The “Marikana massacre” has poisoned industrial relations across the mining sector and highlighted the ruling African National Congress’s (ANC) failure to keep its promises to reduce poverty in the post-apartheid era.

The bloodshed and the government’s inability to resolve the unrest undermining already shaky growth in Africa’s biggest economy is also fuelling a campaign against President Jacob Zuma, who faces an internal ANC leadership battle in December.