BARBERTON – Expert geological teams were working on Tuesday to reassess the possibility of taking rescuers underground at Vantage Goldfields’ troubled Lily Mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga, where three miners have been trapped for 11 days.

“Following on from our media release yesterday (Monday) about doing a 48-hour assessment, we are looking at the data at the moment.

“It seems as if everything has been a bit stable overnight so I’m taking taking a team underground this morning to go and assess the area around the shaft where we have been working for the rescue operation,” Lily Mine operations manager Mike Begg said.

“We basically have to come from underground and say [whether] the shaft is still intact. Then the first thing we have got to do is to try and establish a second escapeway. That will be the most important thing for us to do. We are looking at various options of that at the moment.”

He said rescue teams could be sent down the mine shaft only once the assessments had been completed.

Lily Mine is currently closed and rescue missions are on hold following two collapses at the sinkhole where the three workers are trapped.

Geological experts on Monday advised Vantage Goldfields not to send rescuers underground as it was dangerous to do so.

Tuesday marks 11 days since Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Mabuza and Solomon Nyarenda became trapped underground when the container they were working in fell into a sinkhole created by a collapsed crown pillar before being covered by huge rocks.

Seventy six other workers were rescued following the collapse.

On Tuesday, the chairpersons of Parliament’s portfolio committees on Mineral Resources, Sahlulele Luzipo, and Labour, Lumka Yengeni, were due to visit the mine to ascertain the circumstances around the mine collapse on February 5.

On Saturday, Vantage Goldfields offered R200 000 to the families of each of the three miners still trapped. The other workers who were rescued would be compensated R50 000 each, the company said.