WATCH - Lily Mine Collapse: Team to assess way forward
A team at the Lily Mine near Barberton in Mpumalanga on Tuesday returned underground to assess the structural integrity and level of safety before deciding if rescue operations would be able to resume.
Three workers have been trapped underground since a collapse at the mine 11 days ago. Pretty Mabuza, Solomon Nyarenda and Yvonne Mnisi have been unaccounted for since the ground below the lamp room, where they were working in, gave way.
Rescue operations were suspended on Saturday after more ground collapsed at the mine.
Management told the media that the safety of the rescue workers had to be ensured before operations to get to the trapped workers could continue.
The mine's operations manager, Mike Begg, said they were heading back underground to see if the shaft was still intact.
"We are looking at the data at the moment. It seems as if everything has been stable overnight," he said.
Begg said the first thing they had to do was to try and re-establish a second escape way.
"We are looking at various options at the moment which may involve drilling holes through the pit further back into levels we know below so we can, at least, have a second escape way before we send people underground again," he said.
Maryke Vermaak reports from Lily Mine...
Edited by Suné du Toit