An earthquake rocked parts of northern South Africa today, trapping 42 gold miners underground, damaging buildings and causing scores of minor injuries.
The quake, measuring five on the Richter scale, was centred near Klerksdorp, 125 miles south-west of Johannesburg.
The miners were trapped 1.5 miles underground. Rescuers were "digging like mad" to save them, said Ilja Graulich, a spokesman for gold mining company DRDGold.
"They are working to open entry tunnels that were closed by rock falls." He said the company did not yet know if any of the trapped miners were injured. "We are digging. We are digging," he said.
He said 2,380 miners had been brought to safety on the surface, 778 were awaiting lifts to the surface and 23 had been injured.
About 40 people in Stilfontein, 10 miles from Klerksdorp, suffered minor injuries and a number of buildings had to be evacuated because of structural damage. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries, but authorities said the situation could change and area hospitals had been put on alert.
The largest earthquake in South Africa hit in the Western Cape in 1969 and had a magnitude of 6.1. A quake of magnitude five can cause considerable damage.