78 bodies recovered from South African mine

The rescue is now underway, but only a few miners can be pulled out at a time, and the operation could take 10 days.

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Detail from South Africa, Photo: REUTERS
Detail from South Africa, Photo: REUTERS
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Rescuers in South Africa have pulled at least 78 dead and more than 160 surviving miners from an abandoned gold mine, where the miners had been trapped for more than two months during a standoff with authorities who demanded they surrender to police for mining illegally.

Hundreds of miners are believed to be still in the mine, and the death toll is expected to rise.

NGOs claim that authorities have removed equipment that miners used to enter and exit the mine.

They also say that a large number of miners died of hunger due to the government's refusal to launch a rescue operation for weeks.

The rescue is now underway, but only a few miners can be pulled out at a time, and the operation could take 10 days.

South African authorities claimed that miners could always have escaped through another shaft at the Bufelfontein gold mine.

However, activists said that the shaft is reached by a dangerous underground journey that could take days, and many are too weak or sick after months underground, with little food and water.

Police claim that some miners refused to come out.

In response to a request from a relative of one of the miners, a court last Sunday ordered authorities to launch a rescue operation that began on Monday.

In November, police first tried to evict miners from a closed mine near the town of Stillfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, by cutting off their food and water supplies.

The court then ruled that the authorities must deliver the supplies, but civic groups argue that officials should have done more at that point because, "even without police intervention, the miners were unable to bring enough food and water into the mine."

The mine is 2,5 kilometers deep with multiple shafts, many levels and tunnels.

A group representing miners said many groups were in various parts of the mine and estimated that more than 500 miners were underground when the rescue began.

It is not clear how long they have been underground, but the miners' families say some of them have been there since July.

Police announced today that 78 bodies have been found so far, and 166 survivors have been pulled out.

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