Authorities face possible investigation into their initial refusal to help miners and instead 'smoke them out' by cutting off food supplies

The clampdown on illegal mining cut off food and water to hundreds of miners underground. At least 78 bodies were pulled from a mining shaft this week, and more are believed to remain underground.

Rescuers and volunteers have pulled at least 78 dead miners and more than 160 survivors from an abandoned South African gold mine.

STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) - South African rescuers were making final efforts on Thursday to ascertain whether anyone was left in an illegal gold mine deep underground where at least 78 people died during a police siege, in what a labour union called a state-sponsored massacre.

At least 78 people have died after authorities imposed a blockade on an illegal gold mine here, part of a monthslong standoff between prospectors and a government determined to force them to surface—often by cutting off their food and water.

South African authorities have ome under intense scrutiny for their response after civic groups said hundreds of miners have been trapped deep in an abandoned gold mine for months

Using a cage-like device, South African rescuers have brought at least 60 bodies and 92 survivors to the surface from one of the country's deepest mines.

Rescuers recovered 51 additional bodies from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 60 after nine bodies were retrieved on Monday, the first day of a massive rescue operation.

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.

South African authorities lifted the bodies of 60 people from an abandoned gold mine, police have said. Hundreds more people could be underground following a monthslong effort to force them out of the mine.