Fed-up Mpumalanga residents have taken on the department of mineral resources and mining giant Glencore, claiming their health and quality of life are suffering as coal-mining operations encroach on their homes.

A recent intensification of activity at the Goedgevonden mine in Ogies has sparked a two-part court application. The first, in which residents asked that Glencore immediately shut its operations, was dismissed. A second application to overturn the department’s decision to grant certain mining rights is pending.

Anne-Marie Muller, secretary of a residents’ group calling itself the Distressed Mining Community of Ogies, has lived there with her husband, Adriaan, for 35 years...