S. Africa mine tragedy: 78 bodies, 216 survivors

Rescued miners are seen as they are processed by police after being rescued at the mine shaft where rescue operations are ongoing as attempts are made to rescue illegal miners who have been underground for months, in Stilfontein, South Africa. —IHSAAN HAFFEJEE/REUTERS

STILFONTEIN—At least 78 dead bodies have been pulled from an illegal gold mine in South Africa where police cut off food and water supplies for months, in what trade unions called a “horrific” crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.

Hundreds more people are feared trapped 2 kilometers below the surface of the mine at Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, with rescuers scrambling to haul them out alive or dead in a court-ordered rescue operation that began on Monday.

A total of 216 survivors, some of them emaciated and disorientated, have been brought to the surface and immediately arrested for illegal mining and immigration.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions accused the state of allowing the men “to starve to death in the depths of the earth.”

Reuters

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