97 Miners, Three workers Trapped in South African Gold Mine Collapse

Work has been suspended at a mine site, operated by Australian-based operators mining gold at Barberton,Johannesburg, after a building above the gold mine collapsed on Friday, trapping dozens of people before they were saved.

The collapse at the mine's main entrance trapped 87 workers underground, all of whom were rescued, Vantage Goldfields confirmed in a statement.

The collapse is believed to have been cause by a sinkhole.

Pix: Reporters were not allowed near the site where the cave-in occurred, as relatives and a crowd stood outside the Lily mine site awaiting words on the results of rescue attempts.

The small gold producer said there were no fatalities, but said three others who had been working on the surface at the time could not be accounted for.

"The three missing are office workers, not miners. We are not going to rest until we find them," Mike Begg told reporters at the mine near the town of Barberton in Mpumalanga province.
"At this point, it's unclear what caused the disaster," according to Manzini Zungu, a spokesman for the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union.

The rescued miners had no serious injuries and were taken to a local hospital for treatment, Spokesman for ER24 private emergency service said.