Months after South Africa’s government began an operation to flush out hundreds of people from an illegal gold mine near Johannesburg, police pulled out 60 bodies as part of a search-and-rescue effort,

By Nellie Peyton and Bhargav Acharya STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) -At least 78 illegal miners have been pulled out dead from a South African mine where police blocked food and water supplies for months in what trade unions described as a "horrific" state crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.

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,

Rescuers and volunteers have pulled at least 78 dead miners and more than 160 survivors from an abandoned South African gold mine, where they have languished for over two months during a standoff with authorities who demanded they surrender to police because they were mining illegally.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South African authorities have pulled at least 60 bodies from the shaft of a closed gold mine more than 2 km (1.2 miles) underground where an unknown number of men are still feared trapped,

South African rescuers have pulled out 36 dead bodies and 82 survivors from a gold mine deep underground in two days of operations, police said on Tuesday, adding that the survivors would all face illegal mining and immigration charges.

More than two dozen illegal miners have been rescued and at least nine bodies recovered from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, as rescue operations resumed Tuesday to reach potentially dozens more people underground.