Police say the death toll in a monthslong standoff between authorities and miners trapped while working illegally underground at an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87.

Arguing that the miners had entered the mine without permission, authorities reportedly cracked down by cutting off their access to food and water.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.

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

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.

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

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.

Months after South African authorities initially cut off supplies to miners working illegally in an abandoned gold mine, rescuers brought dozens of bodies and emaciated survivors to the surface Tuesday with hundreds more still believed to be underground,

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.