JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African police have arrested nearly 400 people for a drunken party that sparked a free-for-all brawl in an abandoned mine shaft several hundred metres underground, an official said on Friday.
Police were called to the scene at the weekend in the shaft about 250 km (180 miles) southeast of Johannesburg by a person who had been pummelled by the mob seeking help.
"It was chaos when the police arrived there," police spokesman Billy Jones told Reuters.
The group included 89 women and several people from neighbouring Lesotho. The shaft had been used by illegal miners seeking precious metal overlooked by the mining firm that once operated there.
Police also seized a small cache of weapons. Almost all of those arrested are still in jail after they appeared in court earlier this week.
(Reporting by Mmathabo Tladi; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)
