An operation began today to rescue around 3,000 South African gold miners trapped a mile underground when a falling pipe damaged their lift.

A water pipe burst and soil in an underground shaft probably collapsed, trapping about 3,000 workers in a gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic capital and gold-mining centre, the workers’ union said.

A white man has been arrested on charges of beating a black man to death in front of the man’s wife and daughter in a dispute over a parking space, police in South Africa said today.