Rescuers pull survivors from South Africa mine as hundreds remain trapped Police say that at least 36 bodies and 82 survivors have been brought out of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine since Friday,.
Police said that at least 36 bodies and 82 survivors have been brought out of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine since Friday, but civic organisations and groups representing the miners say more than 500 are still believed to be underground, many of them ill.
The mine near the town of Stilfontein, about 90 miles 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.
Authorities said the 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 in cutting off the miners' food and water supplies from the surface in an attempt to force them out.
Rescuers are sending a cage-like structure into one of South Africa's deepest mines in an attempt to bring out survivors among hundreds of illegal miners trapped in an abandoned shaft underground for months.
