A dramatic rescue of nine gold miners trapped two kilometres underground in South Africa for the past four days is underway.

Rescuers broke through a rock fall to the shaft where the miners were trapped in the Orkney mine after moving five hundred tons of rock, much of it by hand, in tunnels cut in the rubble barely wide enough for a human body to pass through.

At least four other miners are known to have been killed by the rock fall which was caused by an earth tremor, and there are concerns for two more who were injured.

The trapped survivors have been fed a sugar and water mixture through an air tube in the rock.

In 1999 more than three hundred miners were killed in South African gold mines many from countries all over Africa.

The rescue has been followed minute by minute by South African radio and television audiences.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service