Dozens more bodies and hundreds more workers remain trapped beneath, according to a miners’ rights group.
In two days of operations, South African rescuers extracted 36 dead corpses and 82 survivors from a deep underground goldmine, according to authorities. The survivors will all be charged with unlawful mining and irregular migration.
As part of a crackdown on illicit mining, police started besieging the mine in August and shut off food and water supplies for months in an effort to drive the miners to the surface for arrest.
A miners’ rights organization released video on Monday that showed skeletal survivors and dead in the mine, indicating that hundreds more men and dozens more bodies are trapped underground.
Rescue efforts, which include retrieving men and bodies from a mine shaft more than two kilometers below using a metal cage, may go on for days. Police say they will give a daily update on the number of casualties.
Rescuers were seen on Tuesday transporting one individual on a stretcher in the town of Stilfontein, which is some 150 kilometers from Johannesburg, according to a Reuters team on the scene.
Other males, including one who was malnourished, sat on the ground with paramedics and police officers in uniform.
Illegal mining usually occurs at mines that have been closed by businesses because they are no longer large-scale commercially feasible. Whatever remains is extracted by unlicensed miners, who are frequently from neighboring African nations.
“Close the hole.”
According to the South African government, the Stilfontein mine siege was required to combat illicit mining, which Mining Minister Gwede Mantashe referred to as “a war on the economy.” Last year, he calculated, the illegal precious metals trade was valued at $3.17 billion.
In November, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Minister in the Presidency, declared: “We are not providing assistance to criminals. Our plan is to burn them out.
However, in December, a judge ruled that volunteers should be permitted to transport supplies to the men who were stranded. Last week, the state was instructed to start a rescue effort, which started on Monday.
According to a statement released by the police, “all 82 that have been arrested are facing illegal mining, trespassing and contravention of the Immigration Act charges,” which refers to all of the people who were arrested on Monday and Tuesday.
According to the announcement, two of them would also be charged with possessing gold.
Human rights organizations and locals have criticized the government crackdown, which is a component of an operation known as “Vala Umgodi” or “Close the hole” in isiZulu.
Matumelo, a 26-year-old resident of the Stilfontein area, claimed that her husband had gone into the mine in June when she was pregnant. He hasn’t written to her since August, and she had birth since then.
“My husband, is he alive or dead?” She stated, refusing to reveal her family’s identity out of concern for possible government reprisals.
Outside the location where police and mining officials spoke to the media on Tuesday, locals and rights organizations staged a modest protest.
