The bodies of 36 South African illegal miners were brought to the surface by fellow illegal miners at Harmony Gold's Eland operations at the weekend, the company said on Monday.

This reportedly followed an underground fire in an abandoned area of the Eland shaft in the Free State, Harmony said in a statement.

It was not known if other criminal miners had died, the company said. It would not deploy its own employees in underground searches, as the abandoned mining areas where the criminal miners had been active were "extremely dangerous."

According to the gold mining company, in the last two weeks 294 criminal miners have been brought to surface at the Eland shaft.

"They were charged and will be criminally prosecuted," the company said.

"We continue to address the issue of criminal mining on a daily basis, together with the South African Police Service, the department of justice, the National Prosecuting Authority and other affected mining companies," Harmony's CEO Graham Briggs said.

Initiatives instituted by Harmony included tightened security at shaft heads, daily search operations underground and improved access control measures, Briggs said.

He noted that production had not been affected by the weekend incident.

Source:Xinhua