It's still a rescue, not a recovery: Lily Mine manager

It's still a rescue, not a recovery: Lily Mine manager

Management at Mpumalanga's Lily Mine says they are still conducting a rescue operation and not a recovery as they continue with efforts to dig out three workers trapped underground.

Lily Mine rescue
Photo: Supplied

Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Mazibuko and Solomon Nyerende have been stuck there for a week.


A collapse at the entrance of the mine led to the shipping container office which they had been working in on the surface falling into the ground.


Mike Begg says changing this massive operation from a rescue to a recovery is really not something that he wants to do.  


Click here to read: One week since Lily Mine collapse, three workers remain trapped


"As far as we are concerned, it's still a rescue. I think the terminology of recovery is not just about the physiology of the people in the container. It will come dependent on the resources we've got, whether the resources are being strained." he said.


He said there might come a time when all of these factors may lead them to decide that they were entering a different phase, but that won't be made without the collaboration of the families, the department of mineral resources and union leadership.


Begg says they were taking it day by day.

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