The rescue of hundreds of miners in a deep South African gold mine began with a camera and a note

CARLETONVILLE, South Africa — A specialized camera was lowered late last year into an almost 2.6-kilometer- (1.6-mile-) deep mineshaft in South Africa where hundreds of miners were reported to be trapped, starving, dehydrated and desperate to get out.

With no architectural plans of the actual mineshaft and its levels and tunnels, the camera reached 1,280 meters (4,200 feet) underground and gave rescuers their first visuals: A large group of miners was seen standing around on a level, clearly waiting for help to arrive.

Rescuers brought the camera to the surface and then sent it back down, this time with a notepad, pen and a letter attached to initiate communication with the miners. Once it reached them, the miners immediately also attached a note telling the rescuers that about 480 of them were underground and those still alive were desperate to exit the mine.

It was the beginning of discussions about how to bring the miners to the surface.

It also was the first time a specially designed cage that can be lowered as deep as 3,100 meters (10,170 feet) fitted with specialized cameras and a communications system was used to rescue such a large number of people underground.

''When we got to the level, we could immediately see that there are some people standing. We could not determine the number of people that are standing there, but it was evident that people were standing around and they were in need of help to come up to the surface,'' said Mannas Fourie, CEO of Mine Rescue Services South Africa, the private company contracted to rescue the miners.

At least 87 miners died in the monthslong standoff between police and the miners who were trapped while working illegally in the abandoned Buffelsfontein Gold Mine, police said last week. Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation over their initial refusal to help the miners and bring them out of the mine by cutting off their food supplies.

According to Fourie, who led the operation at the mineshaft, once the cage was lowered with two volunteers from the community, they were eventually able to reach their target of retrieving at least 35 miners a day.

Fourie and his team initially estimated that the operation would last up to 16 days based on equipment that would take two people out of the shaft at a time. But this changed once a full assessment was done and it was determined the cage could be used for the rescue, allowing them to bring up to 13 people at a time.

Fifty-seven round trips were made to retrieve 246 surviving minors and 78 corpses.

While the equipment was very important to the operation, a combination of technology and human effort proved to be crucial, with the two volunteers and the miners themselves playing an important role.

Fourie said the decision of who to load into the cage first was left to the local volunteers and the miners.

''Thereafter, they made a decision themselves to say how many people they can bring out and how they're going to alter between bringing out bodies or bringing out people."

Fourie said the volunteers conveyed that their biggest concern was to control the crowd of miners, because everybody was eager to come out. ''We could see as they climbed into the cage, they made way for each other to get as many people in at one time,'' he said.

According to the rescue team, the camera was one of the most important tools used in the operation because it sent a signal above ground and provided a live feed to a laptop. The feed is recorded and assessed to determine the condition of the shaft barrel, which people need to travel in, and the level itself.

''You know, some of these shafts are flooded with water, some of them are filled up with rubble in the process of rehabilitation, and no one could have given us a clear fact of what the conditions are," Fourie said.

He said the cage was designed to carry only six people at a depth of 3,100 meters, but they managed to pull out up to 13 people at a time as they were working at a shallower depth.