Rescuers have pulled out 36 dead bodies and 82 survivors from a gold mine in South Africa, police said - adding that the survivors would all face illegal mining and immigration charges. Hundreds more men and dozens more bodies are still trapped, according to a miners' rights group that issued footage on Monday showing corpses and skeletal survivors in the mine.
They were illegally mining in an abandoned gold mine and have been engaged in a lengthy standoff with authorities who had cut off their food, water and supplies in an attempt to "smoke them out". During a rescue operation that started on Monday, the authorities are using a cage-like structure to recover the men from more than 2km underground.
Photos from the scene show men - some emaciated - being carried out on stretchers, while a group sits surrounded by police officers and paramedics. The authorities say surviving miners are able to come out and are refusing, but that has been disputed by rights groups and activists, who have fiercely criticised police tactics at the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine.
The mine near Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, has been the scene of a tense stand-off between police, miners and members of the local community since November, when authorities first launched an operation to try to force the miners out. Be the first to get Breaking News.
