South Africa's president is facing calls to order an inquiry into a police operation that was meant to combat illegal mining but ended up leaving 87 miners to die underground as authorities attempted to force them to surrender during a monthslong standoff.

South Africa's prisoners achieved a 96.2% matric pass rate, a 3% increase from last year, but South Africans think they had enough time to study to get 100%.

Police say the death toll in a monthslong standoff between authorities and miners trapped while working illegally underground at an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87.

The clampdown on illegal mining cut off food and water to hundreds of miners underground. At least 78 bodies were pulled from a mining shaft this week, and more are believed to remain underground.

By Siyabonga Sishi and Nellie Peyton STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) - South African rescuers were making final efforts on Thursday to ascertain whether anyone was left in an illegal gold mine deep underground where at least 78 people died during a police siege,

It will be a "mammoth task" to identify the bodies brought up from a disused mineshaft in South Africa this week, a police spokesperson says.

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

Illegal mining is common in parts of gold-rich South Africa. Typically, undocumented miners known as zama zamas - from an isiZulu expression for "taking a chance" - move into mines abandoned by commercial miners and seek to extract whatever is left. Some are under the control of violent criminal gangs.

At least 78 dead bodies have been pulled from an illegal gold mine in South Africa where police cut off food and water supplies for months, in what trade unions called a "horrific" crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.

The authorities had at one point limited the miners’ access to food, water and other supplies in a blockade that drew criticism from human rights groups.

Rescue teams in South Africa have stepped up efforts to pull out survivors and the corpses of illegal miners trapped underground for about two months, following one of the most extraordinary tragedies to hit the industry.

Carmakers in South Africa are imploring the local unit of ArcelorMittal SA and the country’s trade minister to work together to delay the planned closure of steel mills this month.