Illegal gold diggers stuck in mine for months: are there any survivors?
At least 100 illegal miners are said to have died in an illegal mine in Stilfontein, about 150 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg. They have been holed up there since October for fear of being arrested.
At first the family was still allowed to bring the workers food and drink, but later South African authorities closed the mine to force the illegal miners to surface. Once on the surface, they would then be arrested. After all, the South African government wants to crack down on illegal mining. Quite a few miners, probably more than a hundred, would have died in the meantime. How many people are currently still trapped in the nearly two-kilometer-deep mine is not clear, but the number of workers would be in the thousands.
(SR for Tagtik/Source: Reuters - Belga/Illustration: Image by Angela from Pixabay)