11 workers rescued out of 200 feared trapped in S.Africa mine

JOHANNESBURG: Eleven workers have been rescued from an illegal gold mine in South Africa where around 200 were feared trapped Sunday, in the second accident in the country’s mining industry in as many weeks.
Rescuers used heavy duty equipment to try to clear a way out for the men stuck in the mine near Johannesburg, emergency services said.
“We have rescued 11 so far, none of them have visible injuries. But they are being assessed by medics,” Russel Meiring of the private emergency operators ER24 told AFP from the accident scene.
It is believed there are more than 200 miners trapped inside the mine, 30 of them at a shallow level.
The 30 “have told us that underneath them there’s 200 others,” Werner Vermaak, ER24 spokesman said earlier.