Months after efforts began to remove people working in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, rescuers removed 60 bodies and 106 survivors from the mine after two days of operations, police said on Wednesday.

"On day two of operations, a total of 106 alive illegal miners were retrieved and arrested for illegal mining. Fifty-one were certified dead," police said in a statement. Nine bodies had been removed the previous day.

Police are uncertain how many miners remain inside the illegal mine but said it is likely in the hundreds. Miners, many from neighboring countries, entered the shaft near Stilfontein, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, the shaft that used to be part of the South African mining industry, hoping to find remnants of gold.

Since operations to empty the mine began in August, 1,576 people have left the shaft, according to the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy. Authorities had, for months,cut access to food and water from the surface to force the miners out, but a court order in November put an end to such restrictions.

Rescue operations continue

Rescue operations involving a metal cage lowered into the mine shaft to recover men and bodies from more than 2 kilometers underground will continue for days, police said.

Illegal mining usually takes place in mines after companies abandon them because large-scale operations are no longer viable.

Minerals Minister Gwede Mantashe visited the site on Tuesday and said it is not the miners who profit from the illegal gold trade.

"These foot soldiers are taking this gold to somebody. That somebody must take responsibility for that," he said. "Those who make money out of gold mining must take full responsibility of the risk taken."

South Africa has some of the world's deepest gold mines, some of which reach kilometers underground, according to the Minerals Council South Africa.

kb,sms/ftm,ab (AP, AFP, Reuters)