Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa's ruling African National Congress, announced that the violence would be investigated (Creative Commons)

More than 30 miners were killed following a confrontation between police and workers on strike for higher wages at a South African platinum mine on Friday. According to CNN, two police were also hacked to death by workers armed with machetes.

• The violence exploded when police shot at striking rock drillers in the "Easterns" area of the Marikana mine. Tensions have been high in part because of the presence of competing trade unions, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
• The mine, about two hours northwest of Johannesburg, is operated by Lonmin, which is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and is the world's third largest platinum producer. The bulk of its 28,000 employees work at the mine, and around 23% belong to the AMCU.

South African police claimed that their actions were done in self-defense.

• "We did what we could with what we had," Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega told a news conference on Friday, flanked by senior officers who were peppered with questions by journalists about how and why the police used their firearms as they did.

Reuters reported that the violent encounter has "tore a gash in the soul of post-apartheid South Africa. The sight of protesters falling dead before guns fired by government security forces strikes a jarringly painful chord in a nation ruled by Africa's oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress. Its proud anti-apartheid image has long been nurtured by memories of fallen martyrs and massacres committed by police and troops under white-minority rule that ended 18 years ago."

President Jacob Zuma, of the country's ruling African National Congress, has announced that the violence would be investigated.

Find more Neon Tommy coverage of South Africa here.

Reach Executive Producer Paige Brettingen here.