Police announce sudden end of mine rescue operation

STILFONTEIN (AP):

South African police said on Wednesday they have ended a rescue operation and believe they have brought out all the survivors and retrieved all the bodies from an abandoned gold mine, where hundreds of miners were trapped for months while working illegally.

The surprise announcement came just a day after the police minister said the rescue operation would likely last until at least next week. Police said that 78 bodies had been recovered from the gold mine since the rescue operation began on Monday, and more than 240 survivors had been rescued.

Police said rescuers would do a final sweep of the mine on Thursday to ensure no more survivors or bodies were underground.

It apparently brought a sudden end to a disaster that has focused criticism on the South African government’s decision last year to try to force out the miners by cutting off food and other supplies.

Civic groups say the government’s weeks-long refusal to stage a rescue effectively left scores of miners to die of starvation or dehydration, having been underground for at least two months. The authorities only began the rescue operation on Monday after they were ordered to by a court.

South African authorities have argued that the miners were able to exit through another shaft at Buffelsfontein Gold Mine, one of the deepest in the mineral-rich country.

But activists said that would involve a dangerous trek underground, and many became too weak or ill after months underground with little food and water. Police contend thaat some miners refused to come out.

South Africa’s second-biggest political party, which is part of a government coalition, has called for an independent inquiry to find out “why the situation was allowed to get so badly out of hand”.

In response to a request by a relative of one of the miners, a court last week ordered a rescue operation, which began on Monday. A specialist mining rescue company has been dropping a small cage thousands of metres (feet) into the mine to retrieve survivors and bodies. But no personnel from the company entered the shaft because they considered it too dangerous – instead, community volunteers headed down in the cage to help the miners out.

Police first tried to force the miners out of the closed mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, in November by cutting off their supplies. The move, part of a larger crackdown on illegal mining, began a stand-off between the authorities and the miners and members of the community.

A court ruled that the authorities had to allow supplies in – but civic groups argue that officials needed to do more at that point because even without police interference, the miners weren’t able to get enough food and water into the mine, and the situation was becoming dire.