Three people were still missing on Friday afternoon after the collapse of a gold mine in Mpumalanga, operated by Sydney-based Vantage Goldfields.

The employees were working on the surface when the disaster happened on Friday morning, Vantage Goldfields said.

All 87 workers who had been trapped underground had been safely rescued, the company said.

The three missing employees worked in a lamp room, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said. Rescuers were continuing efforts to retrieve the remaining people, Amcu said.

The incident occurred at the Lily gold mine near Barberton.

"It was a massive cave-in," Hi-Tech Medical Service spokesman Jacques Ainslie said. Three levels of the underground mine, which is about 450m deep collapsed, he said.

The disaster follows the deaths of four Impala Platinum mine workers on January 22. The miners were overcome by fumes while trying to find their way to safety, after a fire broke out at Impala’s number 12 shaft in Rustenburg, west of Johannesburg. (Bloomberg)

•Photo shows miners at work inside gold mine.