First South African miners rescued from disused shaft
Attempts to rescue more than 200 miners trapped in an abandonded gold mine near Johannesburg are underway.
Werner Vermaak from local rescue service ER24 EMS said rescuers were communicating with a group of about 30 miners trapped by fallen boulders below the surface at the old mine site in the suburb of Benoni.
He said: “They told us there are about 200 others trapped further below. It’s an abandoned mine shaft in the middle of the public veld (open fields). It was not a blocked-off area.”
The first handful of miners emrged before 6pm local time (4pm UK time). Emergency services said the men were given a medical check and then handed over to the police.
An emergency services source told Channel 4 News it could take anywhere from a few hours to three days to rescue all those underground depending on conditions.
The shaft is so narrow that people will have to be brought up one by one.
The miners are believed to have become trapped on Saturday morning and they were only discovered when police investigating illegal dumping in the area heard screams.
It is understood that the miners do not have water, and the temperature at the surface is reaching 30C.
Rescue teams have brought in heavy equipment to remove rocks that were blocking the entrance to the disused shaft.
Illegal mining of abandoned shafts is common in South Africa, where miners try to excavate remaining mineral ore, often living underground in dangerous conditions.
Fatal accidents are common, and fights underground between rival groups of miners have also been reported.
Illegal diggers also sometimes try to invade active mines to steal deposits. At least 82 men – thought to have been illegal miners – died after an underground fire at a Harmony gold mine in South Africa in 2009.
