Reuters, JOHANNESBURG
South African authorities have pulled at least 60 bodies from the shaft of a closed gold mine more than 2km underground where an unknown number of men are still feared trapped, following a siege in a crackdown on illegal mining.
The siege, which began in August last year at the mine in the town of Stilfontein, about 150km from Johannesburg, cut off food and water supplies for months to force the miners to the surface so that they could be arrested.
On Monday, authorities used a metal cage to begin recovering men and bodies from the shaft, in an operation expected to run for days.
Police maintain a cordon around shaft 11 during rescue operations for trapped miners at the abandoned Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, on Tuesday.
Photo: Bloomberg
“We don’t know exactly how many people are remaining there,” South African Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu told broadcaster eNCA. “We are focusing on getting them, assisting them out.”
It was difficult to say when all the miners would be brought up, he said, adding that “when each one of the miners who are underground went there, no one was counting.”
In a statement, police said 51 bodies had been retrieved by Tuesday night, following nine the previous day.
The 106 survivors pulled from the mine on Tuesday were arrested for illegal mining, swelling the figure of 26 a day earlier, they added.
For decades, South Africa’s precious metals industry has battled illegal mining, which costs the government and industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost sales, taxes and royalties, a mining industry body estimates.
Typically, it is centered on mines abandoned by companies, as they are no longer commercially viable on a large scale. Unlicensed miners, known locally for taking a chance, go in to extract whatever might be left.
The South African government has said the siege of the Stilfontein mine was necessary to fight illegal mining, which South African Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe called “a war on the economy.”
However, residents and rights groups have criticized the crackdown, part of an operation called “Close the Hole.”
