Rescuers continued retrieving bodies Wednesday from an abandoned South African gold mine with hundreds more still believed to be underground, many of them dead and others too weak to come out on their own.

Hundreds are still trapped at the Stilfontein gold mine, a rights group said. Authorities tried to flush out the miners by depriving them of food and water.

South African authorities have ome under intense scrutiny for their response after civic groups said hundreds of miners have been trapped deep in an abandoned gold mine for months