Five diamond miners, missing since a deep underground mudslide on Tuesday, are now presumed dead, South Africa’s mining minister confirmed on Friday. Gwede Mantashe announced that the focus had shifted to retrieving their bodies, public broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. The workers became trapped over 800 metres below the surface following a “mud-rush” at the Ekapa mine in the Northern Cape province early on Tuesday morning.
Ekapa Minerals, the company that operates the mine, said all operations were stopped immediately after the incident and that rescue efforts were continuing.
“The time passed since the event is a major concern but there is no change in approach to the rescue activities and we are not giving up hope,” Ekapa Minerals General Manager Howard Marsden said in a statement.
Mantashe said in a separate statement that an investigation would be conducted to find out what had happened.
South Africa’s government and mining industry have been making efforts to reduce mine deaths and injuries, part of a campaign called “Zero Harm”. Last year the country recorded its lowest-ever number of mine deaths, 41.
Ekapa Minerals said it had been briefing the families of the trapped miners, who held a vigil near the mine on Thursday night.
Kimberley, where the mine is located, was the site of a 19th-century diamond rush that lured fortune-seekers from the world over.
Diamond revenues funded the growth of South African industry and gold mines, which themselves helped finance colonial ruler Britain through two world wars.
