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.

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. Seventy-eight corpses, along with more than 240 illegal miners,

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.