Stilfontein, South Africa — Rescuers and volunteers have rescued at least 78 dead miners and more than 160 survivors from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa. For more than two months, they have been locked in a standoff with authorities who demanded they surrender to the police because of illegal mining.
Hundreds of people were still believed to be trapped on Wednesday, and the death toll from the disaster is expected to rise further, with efforts to “eliminate” them by temporarily cutting off food and other supplies. Criticism has focused on the South African government’s decision to do so. Civil society groups claim that authorities have also removed the rope and pulley system that miners used to access and pump supplies into at least one shaft.
The group claims that the government’s denial of rescue efforts for several weeks effectively caused scores of miners to die of starvation and dehydration. A court-ordered rescue operation is currently underway, but only a few miners can be pulled out at a time and the operation could take up to 10 days.
South African authorities insist miners could have left at any time through another shaft at the Buffelsfontein gold mine, the mineral-rich country’s deepest.
But activists say it involves a dangerous underground march that can take several days for some people, and that many become weak and sick after living underground for months with little food or water. Then he said. Police claim some miners refused to come out.
At the request of the relatives of one of the miners, a court ordered a rescue operation last week, which began on Monday. Professional mine rescue companies are dropping small cages thousands of meters (feet) into the mine to retrieve survivors and bodies. However, company staff did not enter the shaft because it was too dangerous, and local volunteers instead went into the cage and rescued the miners.
Police first tried to force the miners out of the closed mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, in November by cutting off supplies to the miners. The move is part of a larger crackdown on illegal mining and has sparked a standoff between authorities, miners and local residents.
The court ruled that authorities had to allow the supplies to come in, but civil society groups said miners could get enough food and water into the mine without police intervention. They argue that authorities should have done more at the time because the situation was becoming dire. .
The mine is 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) deep, with multiple shafts, many levels, and a maze of tunnels. A group representing the miners said there were numerous groups in different parts of the mine and estimated that more than 500 miners were underground when the rescue began.
It is unclear exactly how long they have been underground, but relatives say some of them have been there since July.
Police said on Wednesday that 78 bodies have been recovered and 166 survivors rescued since the official rescue operation began. Community groups said nine more bodies were discovered on Friday, and more unidentified bodies were found in the weeks after community members tried to rescue the miners themselves.
Civil society groups representing miners say at least 100 people have been killed.
Officials’ rescue efforts are currently progressing slowly because only a few people can be in the cage at a time and the mine shaft is very deep.
Authorities say the miners could have left if they wanted to, and police say more than 1,000 people got out before the rescue operation, but they were arrested. He said he did not go outside because he was afraid. Police said they had arrested all those who surfaced before and after the rescue operation.
They face charges of illegal mining and trespassing. Authorities seized gold, explosives, firearms and more than $2 million in cash from the miners.
One of the civil society groups representing miners released two videos over the weekend showing the dire conditions underground. The group said the video was saved on a mobile phone taken from the mine by one of the miners, along with a note urging people to watch it.
Inside, what appear to be dozens of corpses can be seen lined up in a dark cave, wrapped in plastic. The footage also shows the miners looking shirtless and emaciated, with the man filming saying they are dying and pleading with authorities to send food and rescue them.
Authorities have come under fire, particularly for tactics last year that saw them cut off food and other supplies to underground miners for periods of time. The South African minister said this was an attempt to “wipe them out”, adding that the miners were “criminals” and the authorities would not help them.
Human rights groups have condemned the plan, accusing the authorities of complicity in a “genocide” at the mine, and local residents have also gathered at the mine carrying placards criticizing the authorities.
But despite growing anger in local communities, the tragedy has not provoked a strong reaction across South Africa, where illegal mining is frequently in the news.
This practice is common in mines that have been closed by companies because they are no longer profitable, and groups of informal miners move in to seek out the remaining deposits. There are an estimated 6,000 abandoned mines in South Africa.
The South African government has taken a hard line against the group known as Zama Zamas (Zulu for “hustlers”), which has been a long-standing problem for authorities. The government says many of them are armed and members of criminal organizations, and many are foreign nationals who entered South Africa illegally from neighboring countries.
The government says it steals more than $1 billion a year from South Africa.
More than 1,500 people were arrested for illegal mining in the Stilfontein region last year, the majority of them from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, authorities said.
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Imlay reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
