Efforts to locate remaining miners trapped underground continue at Ekapa Mine

Efforts to locate the remaining miners trapped underground are continuing at Ekapa Mine in Kimberley in the Northern Cape.

This follows the recovery of two more bodies on Sunday.

Five mineworkers were trapped underground following last month’s mudslide.

Two weeks ago, rescue teams managed to retrieve the remains of one miner after their efforts were delayed by water underground.

The accident has since raised fresh concerns about governance in the country’s mining sector.

Parliament’s Mineral Resources Committee chairperson, Mikateko Mahlaule, said that rescue teams are making steady progress after focusing their search on a specific area.

"We are comforted that the expertise of the mine rescue services and the information they gave the portfolio committee seems to point to a direction that their intelligence was correct, instead of looking everywhere. They narrowed it down to looking at a specific direction..."

He added that authorities have also detected the location of a fourth body that has not yet been retrieved.

"They are seeing the third body, which in no time, after removing the mud between them and the body, they will be able to recover the third body.”

Operations at the Kimberley-based mine were shut down after the five miners were trapped underground.