A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners to allow emergency workers to gain access to a mine shaft where several hundred are believed to remain after the government cut off vital supplies.

Hundreds of clandestine miners at a disused South African shaft are struggling to survive in grim conditions because of a police operation to force them out, one of the men who escaped told AFP Sunday.

Officials are blocking access to basic supplies for hundreds of people underground in a northwest mine shaft as part of a crackdown on miners.