Stilfontein (South Africa) - Police announced today (local time) that 60 bodies have been recovered from a disused gold mine in South Africa - after months of attempts to evict illegal miners!

Authorities began recovering the bodies and survivors on Monday after local residents expressed fears that more than 100 people may have died at the mine in Stilfontein, about 140 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg.

"On the second day of the operation, a total of 106 live illegal miners were recovered and arrested for illegal mining. Fifty-one were pronounced dead," the police said in a statement. Nine bodies had been recovered the previous day.

The mine runs 2.6 kilometers underground, and on Monday a special machine was used to retrieve the miners and the bodies, a handful of people at a time.

South Africans call these miners "zama zamas" - "those who try their luck" in the Zulu language. They are often migrants from neighboring countries who are accused of criminality by the locals.

The police have expressed fears that hundreds of them could still be underground. However, during a visit to the site on Tuesday, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu refused to give an estimate of how many there could be. "There is no way we can say, 'I know for sure there are that many'," he said. "Every number we have here is an estimate, is a guess."

More than 1500 of the illegal miners have been arrested in Stilfontein since August, when authorities began moving them out of the area. South Africa has deported 121 of them, according to police.

The survivors appeared emaciated, their legs were just skin and bones. The authorities had previously tried to cut off the mine's supply of food and water in order to drive the miners away.

However, in November, a court ordered the police to lift all restrictions on the shaft so that they could once again distribute food and water to the people above ground.